


The Heart of the Storm

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [23]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boats and Ships, Dragon Kagami Tsurugi | Ryuko, Female Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Good Sibling Juleka Couffaine, IDENTITY SHENANIGANS, Identity Reveal, Juleka Couffaine Ships It, Kwami & Miraculous Lore, Male-Female Friendship, Miraculous Holder Juleka Couffaine, Miraculous Holder Rose Lavillant, Music, New Miraculous, Pig Miraculous, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, Road Trips, Romance, Rose Lavillant Ships It, Secret Identity, Snake Luka Couffaine | Viperion, Tiger Juleka Couffaine, Tiger Miraculous, Tomoe Tsurugi's Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 39,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A "Mind Games"-verse Story:“Why are you putting me and Juleka on different teams for this?” Luka asked, furrowing his brow. “After all, wouldn’t it make more sense to put us together since we already know each other’s identities? As it is, we’ll both be trying to hide our identities from our partners.”“Are you jealous that I get to hang out with Ryoku for two weeks?” Juleka asked him, wagging her eyebrows.A snatch of melody sprang to his mind unbidden, even as Luka gave Juleka a halfhearted glare. She grinned back unrepentantly.-----------Several hours and a hundred rounds of “Super Akuma Battle Melee” later, after Kagami had left for the night, Marinette looked at Adrien, a worried expression on her face. “Do you think we should tell them?”Adrien shrugged and tightened his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe,” he replied.-----------Note: This is part of a series but can be read by itself.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Luka Couffaine, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Juleka Couffaine & Kagami Tsurugi, Juleka Couffaine & Luka Couffaine, Juleka Couffaine & Rose Lavillant, Kagami Tsurugi & Tomoe Tsurugi, Luka Couffaine & Kagami Tsurugi, Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine & Rose Lavillant, Luka Couffaine/Kagami Tsurugi, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kagami Tsurugi, Rose Lavillant & Kagami Tsurugi
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 60
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you are curious about the background of this story, the first 2-3 chapters should set the stage. The series "The Snake and the Dragon" contains all the stories that factor into Luka and Kagami's partnership before this.
> 
> Non-Canon Miraculous Heroes in this story:  
> Bengalia – Juleka (Tiger Miraculous)  
> Miss Pinky – Rose (Pig Miraculous)
> 
> As a reminder, the only known identities among the four main characters are Luka and Juleka. They don’t know either of the others’, and neither of the others knows theirs.

Schools had just let out for the summer an hour earlier. Though Luka had already been out of lycée for a year and had decided to focus on his music instead of attending a university, he was looking forward to the opportunity to put in more time with Kitty Section – a downside of his band mates all still being in lycée was that they couldn’t rehearse as much during the school year as during school vacations. They had a concert lined up for later in the summer, and perhaps they could even record their third album if everything went well. And without school to worry about, they could rehearse almost every day! Of course, that plan had gone right out the window when he got the text from Marinette asking him and Juleka to come by the Mansion.

“Are you excited for vacation?” he asked Juleka as they walked from their houseboat up to the imposing Agreste Mansion.

“Definitely!” Juleka told him. “I don’t mind school, and I like seeing my friends there, but sometimes it’s just too many people all at once.” She frowned. “I’d rather just hang out with you or Rose.”

Luka nodded. Her song was so soft and sweet, and too many people had a tendency to drown it out. Of course… “I’ve been glad to see you coming out of your shell a little more the last couple months,” he noted as they made their way up the Mansion driveway. “Should I be thanking a certain little _friend_ for that?”

Juleka giggled and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. “I can see why you were so excited about it,” she agreed, eyes lighting up with joy. “You have no idea how… freeing it is when no one sees Juleka – they just see Bengalia.”

Luka pushed the door open and put a hand out for her to precede him inside. Juleka stopped just inside the door to wait for him, and they ascended the stairs together.

“So did they give you any information about this meeting?” she asked him once they were in the safety of the Mansion.

Luka shook his head. “Not a word,” he answered, frowning. “Marinette asked last month if we would be up for doing some traveling over the summer for the Heroes of Paris, and if Mom would let us borrow the boat, and then… nothing until today.” He shrugged and keyed in the combination on the portrait of Emilie Agreste to activate the elevator. “I guess we’ll find out now.”

“Oh, you definitely will,” a voice called from the corner before he finished the code. Plagg dropped off of his spot on a bookcase. “They’re really proud of this one, actually. For now, though, Tikki and I need to borrow Sass and Roaar for a few minutes. We’ll all join you downstairs as soon as we’re done.”

Luka eyed the Kwami suspiciously, frowning at the mischievous glint in his eye, even as the four Kwamis phased through the wall in the direction of the mansion’s kitchen. Ever since Sass had admitted to knowing some of the other Kwamis from before the Miraculous sets were divided, he’d found himself wondering just how much information the Kwamis were still hiding from them. But he shrugged. It was an old conversation the heroes had had, and ultimately all they could do was trust the Kwamis to share what they could. After all, even though the Kwamis were bound to obey any orders they were given, the tiny demigods had had millennia to perfect the skill of obeying the letter of the command while disobeying the spirit when it suited them. Marinette and Adrien had ultimately decided that maintaining the Kwamis’ trust was paramount: they would share when they needed to. He completed the combination, and the elevator whirred to life the moment he and Juleka were standing on the plate, bringing them down through the floor into the now-familiar subterranean butterfly garden.

Adrien and Marinette were waiting for them in the conference room, a holoprojector already activated and showing a map of France. Luka took one look at the Seine highlighted on the map and nodded in understanding. “This is why you asked about the _Liberty_ , isn’t it?” he asked.

“This is why I asked about the _Liberty_ ,” Marinette agreed, giggling. “This summer we want to take the fight to Lynchpin. We know he’s moving shipments on the Seine, and we’ve narrowed it down to a handful of shipping companies that unload at Le Havre or Honfleur based on the information Pegasus could access online, but not everything is available online. We need someone on the ground to collect the files that he can’t get. That’s where you come in. Two teams for the two ports. Luka, you and Miss Pinky will be in Le Havre, while Juleka and Ryoku check the docks in Honfleur. On the way there, we need to you stop at Rouen as well and plant some cameras at the main hub there, just in case some of his shipments are missing the ocean ports and coming through Rouen.”

“And that’s why Agreste picked _me_ out of all your available models to be the face of your new social media campaign in Honfleur,” Juleka noted glumly, something troubling invading the song in her heart that Luka had almost memorized. She looked down at the table and mumbled, “I should’ve guessed.”

Adrien’s eyes widened in surprise; Luka heard a matching strain of disharmony from him. “In part that’s why,” Adrien admitted nervously. “You being employed by Agreste as a model was the reason we picked _this_ cover story to get you there, but the only reason it worked was because you’re already a good model and the Modeling Department trusts you for this assignment.” She glanced up, and he smiled. “If I wasn’t sending you on this trip, they were planning to use you for a different shoot locally instead; I actually changed their schedule around a little to make sure you could be assigned this particular project _and_ the other one.”

Juleka nodded and gave him a small smile. Luka sighed: the disharmony he had been hearing had resolved. Juleka leaned back in her chair as the four Kwamis rejoined them at the table.

Adrien slid two small boxes across the table, about the size of a deck of playing cards. “Pegasus built these specifically for your mission,” he explained. “It will identify any electronic surveillance systems active at the target. Unfortunately it works on radio frequencies, so it can only pick up internet-based systems; it won’t pick up CCTV, so you’ll still have to watch for those.”

Luka looked back at the hologram, which now showed the teams and their assignments. “Why are you putting us on different teams for this?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “After all, wouldn’t it make more sense to put us together since we already know each other’s identities? As it is, we’ll both be trying to hide our identities from our partners.”

“Are you jealous that _I_ get to hang out with Ryoku for two weeks?” Juleka asked him, wagging her eyebrows.

A snatch of melody sprang to his mind unbidden, even as Luka gave Juleka a halfhearted glare. She grinned back unrepentantly.

Marinette shook her head, though she couldn’t hide her own smirk. “For the information-gathering part of this mission your abilities actually work best on different teams,” she explained. “You may switch things up while you’re there for the other parts of the mission, but for the most part we need you in different cities. These teams worked the best for Miss Pinky and Ryoku’s cover stories, as well.”

“As far as sharing identities,” added Adrien, “it is entirely up to you whether you share with your partners at any point during the mission. We did agree that the two of you knowing each other’s identities and being on different teams would be useful – if one or the other team gets in trouble, someone will already be there to call for help locally.”

“Are you expecting trouble?” Luka asked.

“No,” Marinette replied, “but you never know. We hope to keep your presence there a secret as much as possible and avoid people connecting your trip with the heroes’ absence, so try to avoid letting too many people see you and recognize you. If any trouble _does_ come up and you need help, Pegasus will be here to provide support, and he can send you help just as fast as a portal opens.”

Luka studied the hologram closely and frowned. “It looks like you want to use Kitty Section as a cover for my trip… how is that going to work?”

Adrien grinned. “Just leave that to me.”

* * *

The next day Luka was helping Ivan put the drums away after rehearsal when Adrien stopped at the top of the gangplank, leaned his keyboard case up against the railing, and commented, “We’ve played a lot of concerts in Paris, even recorded a couple albums. Have you thought about planning a tour sometime after our next concert?”

Luka furrowed his brow, but his eyes suddenly widened in recognition. “It has always been a dream of mine,” he admitted truthfully, “but I wasn’t sure where we would start. I mean, playing for our friends and family is one thing, and the logistics of a concert in Paris are really simple, but for us to take a tour outside of Paris… that would be something else.”

“Oh, I think we’re ready for it!” Rose squealed, clapping her hands excitedly. “Going on tour together would be so much fun!”

“I’m game for it,” Ivan agreed with a nod, “although my summer is already packed really full as it is.”

“It would take a lot of planning to put something like that together,” Adrien noted. “We’d need to find cities, scope out venues…”

“You know, Périgueux might be a good place to try!” suggested Mylène. “Ivan and I are going to be there later this summer for the Mime Festival. Maybe we can look into concert arenas there!”

Luka nodded enthusiastically. “That would be a good spot, especially if they already host a major festival,” he agreed.

“What about Le Havre?” Adrien asked, raising an eyebrow. “They host a few festivals up there, even one in September. Maybe there’s a venue up there we could rent for a concert, either this fall or next spring.”

“I’m game for looking into it,” Luka told them. _So_ this _is Adrien’s plan…_ “Mom is planning to visit some friends for a couple weeks, and she said I can take the boat wherever while she’s gone.”

“I have a modeling trip while Mom’s gone,” Juleka said. “I can’t help you look, but I’ll at least go partway with you.”

“Can I come, too?” Rose asked eagerly. “If we’re planning our first tour outside of Paris, I’d _love_ to see where we might perform!”

Luka froze. Having Rose along, too, could complicate matters for their side project. His eyes darted to Adrien, who nodded subtly. “Definitely!” he agreed, smiling.

Ivan frowned. “It sounds like fun, but my summer is pretty booked already,” he told them. “But if the concert does work out, I will definitely be up for that!”

“Unfortunately I’m really busy this summer, too,” Adrien informed them, grinning mischievously. “On top of everything else we’ve got going on, Marinette _also_ wants to get a jump on wedding planning this summer… when everything’s over with, we might need a vacation from the _vacation_!”

“That’s what you get for getting engaged before you’re even out of lycée,” Juleka joked.

“I think it’s sweet,” Rose retorted, clasping her hands together.

“I think you’re moving pretty fast, Agreste,” Ivan commented. He smiled warmly. “But I think we’re all glad to see you both so happy.”

“Your songs have never sounded more harmonious,” Luka agreed.

Adrien chuckled. “One day, I suppose we’ll have to tell you all the full story of _why_ we decided to move so fast.” He looked at his watch and picked up his keyboard case. “But not today. I’m having lunch with Marinette’s family, and then we’re off to the day job.”

Ivan followed him off the boat with Mylène. “I need to get to work, also.”

Luka glanced at Rose and Juleka and smiled. “Looks like we have a trip to prepare for!”


	2. Chapter 2

“You wanted to see me, M. Agreste?” Kagami asked hesitantly, pushing the door open and stepping into Adrien’s office on the top floor of the Agreste Fashion House building. The school year had only ended the day before, and it was already the first day of her summer internship. She had been surprised when her mother told her Agreste was the client she would intern for, but that did explain Marinette’s cryptic hints over the past month. Of course, her mother had spent the entire car ride over drilling into her that she could not damage the Tsurugi Group’s relationship with Agreste by making a poor impression during her internship, and especially on the first day.

For as much as she was looking forward to working in the same building as Adrien and Marinette for the summer, she wasn’t sure that this would mean _seeing_ them any more than she would have interning for her mother directly. _And_ it could very well involve more pressure than working for her mother.

“Shut the door, please, Mlle Tsurugi,” Adrien instructed her solemnly, a serious look in his eyes. She hesitated with her hand on the handle, looking at him suspiciously. For a moment she thought she had already made a mistake, though something in his expression gave her pause. The moment the door was closed, Adrien let out a breath, leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands behind his head. “Man, that’s exhausting,” he grumbled.

“M. Agreste?”

“We’ve known each other how long, Kagami?” he asked rhetorically. “Parent rules apply at Agreste.”

She breathed a sigh of relief and dropped into a chair in front of the desk. “Oh, thank goodness.” Longg popped out of her purse and joined the newly-emerged Plagg in sitting on Adrien’s desk around a small plate of sardines and cheese that Adrien produced from a desk drawer. Kagami put her feet up on the desk and smirked. “When Mother told me about this internship, I thought this was going to make for a _long_ summer working for you if you were going to make me treat you all boss-like and everything!”

“Sorry I didn’t talk to you about it myself,” Adrien replied, grimacing. “Between organizing things at the company – we had hundreds of summer internship applications to sort through – and Kitty Section rehearsals and finalizing our Heroes of Paris plans for the summer, I haven’t had a chance to breathe in a month.” He grinned mischievously.

“If I may ask, why the sudden interest in me interning here?” Kagami asked, arching an eyebrow. “Not that I mind the change from working with Mother all the time.”

“It was Marinette’s idea at first,” Adrien explained. “She said your mother was planning to make you spend the entire summer working in the office at Tsurugi, and she _knew_ you wouldn’t get a single chance to escape if that happened. So…” He spread his arms. “Welcome to your escape!” He chuckled. “Marinette even arranged to spend a week in the Marketing Department with you later in the summer. Right now she’s too busy working on the Winter Line to leave the Design Department for a week. Of course,” he added, winking, “your special project starts next week, so you wouldn’t get to see her anyways!” He slid a folder across the desk.

Baffled, Kagami opened the folder and started reading. She furrowed her brow. “Agreste is sending me to _Honfleur_ of all places? It says here I’m going to be working with a model to put together a social media promotion for the summer and fall lines. And that we’re going to be looking for possible venues for a small fashion show in Honfleur this fall. Why?”

Adrien shrugged. “Back when Father was in charge of the company, he was perfectly content sitting on top of his Paris fashion empire; the rest of the world could burn for all he cared – in _every_ possible sense,” he explained, making a face. “When Marinette and I went to America, we realized that there’s a lot more fashion out there than just what we know. So instead of hiding away in Paris and New York and Hong Kong, we want to get Agreste out to where the people are. Sure, people in the rest of France already buy our clothes, but we’re still just a ‘big city label.’ This way we increase our exposure in the rest of the country.”

Kagami gave him a look, but shrugged. “You’re the boss,” she answered. She flipped a page. “At least the model’s Juleka.”

“Considering how much you’ve been hanging around the band lately, I thought you would be more comfortable with her than any of our other models,” Adrien told her, nodding.

“What’s our budget for travel expenses?”

“Everything is already arranged,” Adrien explained. “Luka is already taking the _Liberty_ down that way at the same time, so you and Juleka will ride with them to Honfleur and then meet up with them for the trip back to Paris two weeks later. It’s a little slower, but Marketing thinks candid photos along the Seine will play well. We would have arranged for you to stay on the boat, but they’re not going to stay in Honfleur while you’re there. So you and Juleka get to share a hotel suite.” He gave her a nervous look. “I hope all of this is okay with you?”

Kagami smiled. “You know what? A boat ride with friends and two weeks hanging out with Juleka – with Mother over halfway across the country _and_ approving of it – actually sounds like a pretty nice summer trip!”

* * *

It was close to dinnertime when Kagami left the Photography studio. Her supervisor in Marketing, M. Renaud, had talked to her about marketing principles for five minutes before deciding he was satisfied with her current level of knowledge. Then he had sent her to the Photography studio to work with one of Agreste’s photographers, M. Brohm. He had spent several hours acclimating her to the cameras she would be bringing and working with her on photography techniques in preparation for the trip. She hadn’t seen either of her friends since her initial meeting with Adrien, but Marinette had sent her a text inviting her to the Mansion for dinner and video games after they all finished at Agreste. She only had to wait a couple minutes in the lobby before Adrien and Marinette joined her and all three walked out to Adrien’s car together.

“So how was your first day?” Marinette asked excitedly, the moment the door was shut and Adrien’s Gorilla bodyguard had pulled away from the curb.

“A lot better than I was expecting, honestly,” she replied with a grin. “Mother has drilled a lot of the mechanics into me at her company, so it’s nice to already have that foundation. M. Renaud let me experiment with lighting and angles and backgrounds with M. Brohm, instead of making me memorize the ‘Seven Strategies for Stupendous Social Media.’” She made a face. “I much prefer this over _anything_ I’d be doing for Mother this summer! Thank you,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “If it weren’t for you, I would probably _never_ get a moment away from Mother’s demands.”

Marinette giggled. “What are friends for?” she asked, giving Kagami a hug.

“Adrien says you’ll be joining me in Marketing after I get back from this trip?”

Marinette nodded. “I’m spending a week or two in every department this summer as part of my internship,” she answered. “Even though I’m here to design, Mme Legrand wants me to know the rest of the fashion industry.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” said Kagami with a grin as they got out of the car at the Mansion. “Marketing is really, really simple: all you have to do is convince someone who already owns six of your shirts that she absolutely _has_ to buy another one five minutes later!” She followed Adrien and Marinette up the stairs then turned toward Adrien’s room, only to stop when she realized the others were heading for the office. “I take it we’re eating _downstairs_ today?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Sorry to spring this on you,” Marinette answered sheepishly. “We’ll play some video games and hang out later, but for now we do have some things to discuss downstairs.”

Kagami nodded and followed them to the Heroes’ elevator, her curiosity piqued. Adrien and Marinette rode the elevator down together first, and then Kagami went down alone. Before the elevator had opened on the Headquarters level, however, Tikki and Plagg phased into it and grabbed Longg without a word, and the three Kwamis disappeared into the main level, presumably to look for food.

The conference room door at the far end of the butterfly garden was still open, so Kagami walked through it and sat down near Adrien and Marinette at the far end of the conference table. A hologram projector came to life, showing a picture of France with the Seine highlighted.

“Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger show,” Marinette told her. “Our plan for this summer is a little audacious, and we’re trying to keep the number of people who know as limited as possible. If the news of which heroes are gone and when were to get out, it could put everyone’s identities at risk, and that’s the last thing we want to do.”

“This is why Agreste is sending me on this trip to Honfleur?” asked Kagami, nodding in realization.

“You got it,” Adrien agreed. “The trip gives you a cover for being there. While you’re gone, Rena Rouge will use Mirages to make it appear as though you and the rest of your team never left the city – or at least cast doubt on when you left. The hope is that you won’t be spotted there at all, so no one will be any the wiser.”

“Makes sense.” Kagami glanced at the hologram and saw the icons of herself and Bengalia over Honfleur, and Viperion and Miss Pinky over Le Havre. Of all the Heroes, she probably trusted Viperion more than anyone else, but… “Bengalia and I do work pretty well together after training together for two months. So what’s the mission?”

“We’ve figured out that Lynchpin is bringing shipments of _something_ into Paris along the Seine, and now we have an idea of when one happened,” explained Marinette, pressing a button and shifting the hologram. “We narrowed it down to these shipping companies and these dates, so we’re sending two groups to the ports to find the information. You and Bengalia will be in Honfleur. Your cover will allow you to check out the docks during the day and take pictures of their security setup; then in the evening you can go back to get the information. On the way we also have a mission for you in Rouen the night you stay there.”

Kagami furrowed her brow. “So are you actually expecting anything usable for the company out of this trip?”

Adrien raised an eyebrow at her. “Considering that the company is sending you on the trip and paying all your expenses, the project really is legitimate,” he told her. “Just consider this a side project to do between shoots.”

* * *

Several hours and a hundred rounds of “Super Akuma Battle Melee” later, after Kagami had left for the night, Marinette looked at Adrien, a worried expression on her face. “Do you think we should tell them?” she asked, frowning.

Adrien shrugged and tightened his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe,” he replied. “But we have valid reasons for maintaining secret identities – Kagami more than anyone. We also have valid reasons for _not_ maintaining them. We’ve left it up to them all year to decide whether or not to share identities, and I agree with you that we should continue that policy. The mission can go fine with them none the wiser, and if something happens… at least their Kwamis know.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

Luka glanced away from the chart he was reading to find Kagami standing on the quay at the foot of the gangplank, surrounded by an enormous pile of luggage. She wore a troubled expression and uncharacteristically was chewing on her bottom lip; Luka could hear an unfamiliar strain of discordance in her song. Looking past her, he recognized her mother’s red car idling on the street with the window closest to them rolled down. He gave Kagami an encouraging smile and nod and raced down to meet her.

“Permission granted, Mademoiselle,” he replied. He looked at the array of bags around her feet. “Are you sure you have enough clothes here, Kagami?” he asked with a chuckle, picking up two suitcases and leading the way onto the boat. The car drove off, and the discordance disappeared almost immediately.

“I sure hope so,” Kagami replied, letting out a quiet sigh of relief and smiling a little more broadly, following him down the steps to the lower deck. “If not, someone at Agreste might get fired – and it wouldn’t be _me_!” Luka stowed the bags under a bed in the boat’s second bedroom, and Kagami dropped the two she had carried on the floor beside the bed. “A couple of these are just equipment, and most of these clothes are for Juleka,” she explained. “If I’m going to take photos of her wearing Marinette’s entire summer line and half the fall one, that means we need to pack a _lot_ of clothes!”

Luka nodded and led the way out for a second trip. “It sounds like you’ll have your work cut out for you while you’re there!” Even if he knew the whole trip was a cover for Juleka to investigate suspicious activity for the Heroes of Paris, he couldn’t exactly let that on to Kagami. From what Juleka had said, this was an important project for Kagami’s internship. And he could tell that even with everything else, Juleka wanted the modeling part to succeed. He hoped it would go well for them. And that Juleka’s night job wouldn’t cause them any problems. For as capable as Kagami obviously was, the idea of involving a civilian in any dangerous situations didn’t sit well with him.

Kagami shrugged as they stowed the next batch of luggage. “It looks worse than it really is,” she confided with a grin. “I think the people in Alteration have a crippling fear of wrinkles or something: they only put about five pieces in each bag. Did Juleka explain what we’re going to be doing?”

He nodded. _I actually know a little more than you do_ , he didn’t say. “Taking marketing photos for about twelve hours a day or something, right?”

“Something like that,” Kagami agreed. “Really we’re just picking a couple outfits, exploring the city, and taking pictures wherever we like.”

“It’s going to be a lot less formal than a normal photo shoot,” Juleka called, pushing the door to their shared bedroom open and sticking her head out. Rose waved from behind her. “Which is fine with me,” she added. “Photo shoots are fun, but it would be _exhausting_ to do them all day for two weeks!”

“Well, if it were going to be a formal thing, it probably wouldn’t be a summer intern taking the pictures,” Kagami joked, arching an eyebrow.

Luka nodded slowly and looked at Kagami more closely. He already knew she was clever; maybe she saw through Adrien’s cover story just as much as he and Juleka had.

“I think I prefer this way,” Juleka reiterated, giving a small smile.

“Me too! Just think of it as friends hanging out and taking pictures together,” agreed Kagami, smiling back.

Luka allowed himself a relieved sigh. No sense blowing the mission before it even started. Ladybug and Cat Noir were depending on him and Ryoku as the two experienced heroes on this mission to pull it off without anyone figuring out what they were up to. He checked the clock on the wall. “Now that everyone is here and all the gear is stowed, it’s time to get underway!” he announced, heading for the stairs with Juleka hot on his heels.

“You should show Kagami how to operate everything!” Juleka suggested.

“Have you been on a boat before, Kagami?” he called over his shoulder.

She shook her head. “Only if Kitty Section rehearsals count,” she admitted, flushing. “This will be a first for me.”

“Come on.” He smiled encouragingly and beckoned her to follow. “Rose has been on a few trips with us before, but you can still learn!” He led Kagami to the pilothouse while Juleka and Rose raced down the gangplank to untie the mooring lines. “On this boat, everyone gets to learn how it operates,” he told her, explaining the dials and gauges. He turned the key to start the engine as Juleka threw the last line aboard, jumped onto the boat, and stowed the gangplank. Luka placed one of Kagami’s hands on the wheel and showed her how to control the acceleration with the other. Once they were ready to depart, he put one hand on the wheel next to hers and helped her carefully steer them away from the dock and into the river. He could hear the music in her heart opening up and taking on a much more joyful tone the further away from the dock they moved. Something about it sounded… familiar. “See?” He smiled and took the wheel from her to maneuver them around a couple tourist rentals and through the city traffic. “Nothing to it!”

* * *

The traffic died down to only a handful of other boats nearby as they left the city limits. Luka turned to Kagami and asked, “Would like to try piloting for a while? The city can be tricky to navigate with all the traffic on the river, but out here it’s a little clearer and less crowded,” he explained.

“Actually,” she replied, smiling broadly, eyes bright, for the first time that day, “I was just thinking this might be a good time to take some of the shipboard photos. The summer line includes swimsuits, and Marinette had them include a couple options for you and Rose, as well. If you’re interested, that is,” she added nervously. “They aren’t fitted as well as Juleka’s or mine, though.”

Luka smiled gently. “I would be happy to help you and Juleka with your project,” he assured her.

“Great!” With that Kagami disappeared down into the hold.

Luka frowned. Something was nagging at the back of his mind about this whole thing… was it something about Kagami’s expressions? Tone of voice? He recognized it from somewhere – her song sounded a little different than what he was used to from their previous interactions –whether at Kitty Section rehearsals, hanging out as friends, or even the Agreste Gala when they had danced together. And yet it resonated so clearly with him for some reason. He shrugged. Whatever it was, it would either become clear in time or else he wasn’t meant to know. Either way, he was glad she was enjoying this trip so far – from what she’d said, she didn’t exactly get out much! The only way she’d ever been able to come and listen to Kitty Section rehearsals was thanks to a little help from Max and Marinette.

It was about thirty minutes later when the three girls finally emerged from below decks in their bathing suits. Juleka and Rose, both wearing different bikinis, were giggling together conspiratorially when they joined him in the pilothouse. Juleka took the wheel from Luka and jerked her head for him to leave. With a sigh he shut the door behind him, trusting Juleka to keep them on course. Kagami met him at the top of the stairs in a teal one-piece suit with a darker green serpentine swirl across the front. “That’s a nice suit,” he told her.

She flushed. “It’s one of my favorites from this collection,” she replied, looking down at the boards. “I put the men’s swimsuits on the bed Juleka said was yours,” she quickly added. “You can just… pick one you like. For these it doesn’t matter if I get pictures with everything, as long as we’re all wearing ‘Marinette’ suits.”

Luka nodded and climbed down the stairs. The bedroom door was shut, and he heard high-pitched voices from inside. But the girls were all up on deck, so who could he be hearing? It had to be Sass and Roaar, right? He pushed the door open. There was a quick blur of color, and the room was empty. “Sass?” he called. “Was that you?”

“Apologiesss, Massster,” Sass answered him smoothly, floating out from behind his pillow. He was presently joined by Roaar, who had been hiding inside Juleka’s dresser. “We were afraid that your guesssts might ssspot usss.”

“It was just me,” Luka assured them. “Though you need to be a little more careful. I could hear you from outside the door.”

“We definitely wouldn’t want anyone else to see us,” Roarr told him, shaking her head a little too innocently.

“Do not worry,” Sass promised. “We will be cautiousss.”

Luka selected a red swimsuit with a pattern that looked vaguely familiar, changed, and went back onto the deck to find Kagami and Juleka already taking pictures while Rose piloted the boat. He leaned against the rail and watched as Kagami directed Juleka through a few poses and took another dozen photos. At last Kagami turned to him, smirked, and took a couple quick candid pictures before he realized what was happening. He blushed, crossed the deck, threw his arm around Juleka’s neck, and smiled as widely as he could. He could hear Kagami taking pictures, but tried to ignore the camera as he looked out over the river. Eventually Luka left them to relieve Rose, reduced their speed slightly and set the autopilot to keep the boat in the deepest section of the river, and rejoined the three girls.

“More expressive!” Juleka joked, throwing her arms out wider, pulling Rose and Luka in closer, nearly cutting off Luka’s air. “You _want_ the camera! You must _embrace_ the camera!”

Luka stared at her in mock-horror. “What kind of photo shoots have you been _doing_ for Adrien???”

Juleka shrugged. “Marcel gets _really_ into his ‘art,’” she replied. She smirked deviously. “Do you think we should try that kind of photo shoot?”

“Um… I’m out.”

“Yes, you are!” Juleka replied, a mischievous glint in her eye. And with that, she pushed him backwards over the railing.

Luka heard a gasp, moments before he put his hands together and cut through the water surface in a dive. He pivoted and pushed back to the surface a moment later to find the boat still moving at the same speed, nearly past him. He saw a flash of green: Sass at the porthole, watching him. He gave the Kwami a tiny wave, moments before a line flew over his shoulder. He grabbed it, pulled it around himself, pulled a bit of slack in the rope, and, with a flick of the wrist, tied it in a bowline around his chest. The line pulled him up alongside the boat, and he ran up the side, grabbed the railing, and pulled himself back on board.

“Seriously, Jules? Are you five again?” he demanded, shaking his head and sending water flying in all directions. Kagami spun around to shield the camera.

Juleka shrugged unrepentantly. “I threw you a line.”

Luka glared at her, though he couldn’t keep the mirth out of his eyes. “The water is really nice,” he finally announced, taking a step closer to her. Juleka’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and she backed up until she was right up against the railing. “Why don’t you test it for yourself?” He threw his arms around her, shook his head, and slapped her in the face with his wet hair. She squealed in outrage.

“Are they always like this?” Kagami asked Rose behind them.

“Only when they have company.”


	4. Chapter 4

Kagami leaned against the rail and watched as Luka, Juleka, and Rose all dove right off the boat into the river. They had decided to take a break for lunch after Luka’s dip in the river, so Luka had steered the boat over to the riverbank and turned off the motor. They’d dropped an anchor into the thick sediment – Luka had assured them the current wasn’t strong enough to pull the boat away from them, but it always paid to be cautious (especially since the boat didn’t actually belong to _him_!). As she watched the others play in the water, Kagami felt a twinge of jealousy. Her mother had insisted that she learn to swim, of course, but it wasn’t a skill she had encouraged her to practice. Kagami had gone to the beach a handful of times – a couple of her mother’s clients had been world-class surfers, after all – but her mother had rarely allowed her to go in the water.

She held up her camera and checked the screen. They looked so happy and carefree just swimming around and splashing each other. Adjusting a couple of settings, she started taking pictures.

“Aren’t you gonna join us?” Juleka shouted, splashing water at the boat, though it didn’t get anywhere close to the deck.

“I’m supposed to take pictures,” Kagami pointed out, holding the camera up.

“So put the camera in a waterproof bag and get down here!” Rose replied, jumping on Juleka’s shoulders and pushing her under the water. She giggled, but suddenly shrieked when Juleka surged to the surface and threw her up into the air.

“Under the console in the pilothouse,” Luka called helpfully, kicking out of the way to avoid Rose landing on top of him and sending a wave of water over Juleka.

Kagami nodded, allowing herself a small smile – she was supposed to sort-of be on vacation, right? She easily found a bag, secured the camera inside along with a float, and jumped into the water. The air along the river was a decent temperature, but it was still hot for early summer. Compared to the heat, Kagami almost shivered on first touching the water. She propelled herself back to the surface and grabbed the camera, which she’d let go of when she hit the water. She breathed a sigh of relief that the bag was still sealed. The water was just barely out of her depth, so she treaded water while lining up a picture of Luka splashing Juleka. The three of them were so… comfortable with each other. Kagami had never had siblings – or even friends before that year – so she couldn’t imagine being that close to another person. Come to think of it, she didn’t know _anyone_ she was that comfortable around. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had gotten to be that comfortable around Marinette, Adrien, and Viperion. She was starting to get there with Bengalia after all their sparring matches. And after attending some of their band rehearsals, perhaps she was starting to feel comfortable with her three companions.

Juleka waved her over and swiped the camera out of her hand. “You can’t take _all_ the pictures,” she insisted, holding the camera up and pointing it at Kagami. “This is supposed to be fun! You need to be in a couple, too!”

Kagami shrugged in acquiescence and paddled over to Rose and Luka. Luka put an arm around both girls, and Juleka snapped a few photos. Kagami caught a glint in Rose’s eye and smirked. At the same moment the two girls slipped Luka’s arms off their shoulders and pushed him under the water. Rose started laughing, and Kagami joined in. Until she felt Luka grab her ankles. She yelped, just as Luka surged to the surface and flipped her over backwards. Propelling herself back up, she splashed him back with a massive wave before Juleka tossed the camera to Luka, pushed off the side of the boat, and collided with Kagami underwater, wrapping her arms around Kagami’s waist and pulling her underwater.

Luka took a few pictures with the three girls together, but eventually Kagami put the camera on a porthole rim and they just started splashing each other and playing in the water. About an hour later, Luka grabbed a line and told the others it was time to get underway again. He climbed up the line hand over hand and tossed it back down to the others. Juleka caught the rope and handed it to Rose, who pulled it around herself and flicked her wrist to tie a knot. Luka pulled her up and tossed the rope down to Kagami. Finally, Juleka pulled herself onboard.

After weighing the anchor, Juleka and Rose lay down on towels on the stern to dry off, and Kagami took her camera and an external hard drive and went to join them on deck while sorting through the day’s pictures. She turned on the camera, took one look, and frowned. The bright sun made it difficult for her to see the pictures. “I’m going to go downstairs to do this,” she decided.

“It’s too nice a day for that,” Juleka pointed out without opening her eyes. “Why not do it in the pilothouse?”

Kagami nodded; considering how infrequently she got to see other people, spending more time sitting in a room by herself or with Longg didn’t sound like much fun. In the shade of the pilothouse she flicked through the camera roll rapidly, stopping to laugh at one where Juleka had caught the exact moment Luka threw her out of the river. She selected all the clearest pictures to save on her external hard drive and removed the rest from the memory card. Satisfied with the morning’s work, she leaned against the wall, fixed her eyes on Luka, and asked, “Why did Juleka push you off the boat before?”

Luka laughed. “It’s an old joke with us,” he explained, taking a quick glance at her, one eye still on the river ahead of them. “Right after we first moved onto the boat, we were playing on the deck when I threw her doll into the river. She didn’t like that and yelled that I had to get the doll back. I said no, but she pushed me over the side to make me get it. Then she ignored me for ten minutes until Mom came to see why we were being so quiet.” He shook his head ruefully. “She was five. She’s made a habit of pushing me overboard at least a couple times a year since then.”

Kagami nodded in understanding and laughed. “That’s why she was so nonchalant about the whole thing.”

“It’s a test of whether she’s _actually_ angry at me how quickly she throws me a line,” he added, smiling. “I think the longest we went was an hour.”

“I noticed she didn’t throw you a life ring or anything.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “The first couple times she did – or _Mom_ did, rather. But then Mom decided if we were going to horse around like that, we should both know how to tie a bowline one-handed, so now we just do that.”

“Tie a what?” Kagami furrowed her brow in confusion.

“A bowline,” he repeated. He cocked his head, surprised, then chuckled. “I take it you never learned to tie sailor’s knots?”

Kagami shook her head. “I can disarm an opponent three times my size, I’m pretty good on ice skates, and I speak five languages. But no, Mother never considered knot-tying to be an important skill for me to master.”

“Well on _my_ ship, everyone needs to know a few basic knots,” replied Luka, smiling gently. He hit a button to activate the autopilot and grabbed a couple lengths of rope off the counter. He slowly tied a knot for her, then talked her through the steps. “‘The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, and then jumps back into the hole,’” he recited.

Kagami tried to follow his directions, but the knot unraveled. She tried it again, with the same result. She groaned in frustration. “If you tell my mother you found something I don’t ‘excel’ in, I swear I will murder you!” she warned him, glaring.

He laughed. “It takes practice,” he told her. “It took Juleka a week to get it right the normal way. We’ve got another day and a half before we reach Le Havre, so you’ve got plenty of time to practice.”

Kagami tried it again, and the knot held, though it didn’t look as clean as Luka’s. By the fifth time, however, she had a strong knot. Luka took it and tugged, and pronounced it to be good.

“Once you can tie it normally, you can learn how to tie it with one hand,” he told her, untying it and wrapping the rope around his waist. “It’s a useful skill to have, especially when you have a sister who likes to throw you off of moving boats!” He stage-whispered the last part, nodding his head aft to emphasize the point.

“You make it so easy!” shouted Juleka, giggling.

Luka rolled his eyes and tied a knot, so fast Kagami could barely pick up on the motion. Seeing her confusion, he slowed down and showed her each step as he went. Once he’d demonstrated it a couple more times, he handed her the rope. Kagami put it around her waist the same way he had, crossed her hand over the rope, made a loop, pulled her hand out, and pulled the rope tight. The rope came loose.

“You almost got it,” Luka told her. He pointed at the rope and then himself. “May I?” When she nodded cautiously, he carefully put his arms around her, his chest against her back, and took her hands in his own. “Is this okay?” he asked. She nodded again, and he slowly walked her through the motions. Kagami fought back a blush at his close proximity. They had danced together at the Agreste Gala, and she certainly enjoyed his company. But of all the people she’d imagined being in this position with, Luka still wasn’t the top of the list. He walked her through the steps a second time before he let go of her hands and leaned forward slightly to watch over her shoulder. Carefully she repeated the steps to tie the knot, and this time it held. “That wasn’t so hard!”

“Did you teach Rose how to tie it this way, too?” Kagami asked, stepping forward away from his chest and turning around to look at him.

He nodded. “The first time she came on a family trip with us, Mom had me teach her,” he answered. “Juleka still hadn’t quite mastered it well enough to teach anyone.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, flushing in embarrassment. “It’s the only way I know _how_ to teach it,” he explained. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Kagami told him with a shrug. “I guess it’s like tying a tie: you’re used to doing it around yourself so that’s how you teach it.”

“You know how to tie a tie?” he asked, surprised.

“You _don’t_?”

He shrugged. “I never wear them, so I never bothered to learn.”

“ _I_ never wear ties, either,” Kagami retorted, smirking, “but Mother thought I had to learn how.” She switched to a high-pitched voice. “‘A good wife must know how to tie her husband’s tie,’” she mocked, scoffing. “Never mind that anyone _she_ deems ‘appropriate’ would already _know_ how to tie a tie.”

“I take it you’re not interested in having your mother play ‘matchmaker’?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

She stuck out her tongue in disgust. “I would rather make my own decisions.”

He nodded. “I can’t really imagine you being one to take direction well.”

Almost unbidden she remembered the first time she had worked with Viperion. She had thrown herself into the fight multiple times (apparently) and been killed almost every time, until he finally convinced her to listen to him. Since then, he and Ladybug were probably the only two people she trusted enough to obey absolutely, without question or hesitation. “It… depends on who’s giving the direction,” she finally replied, seeing him waiting for an answer.

After Rose came in to take a turn piloting the boat, Luka spent the rest of the afternoon on the foredeck teaching Kagami other sailors’ knots, and she slowly picked up on the skill. By the time they docked for the night at Rouen, Kagami had mastered the cleat hitch well enough to help Juleka tie them up alongside the wharf.

“What’s the plan for dinner?” Kagami asked once they were all sitting around the deck together.

Juleka gave her a mischievous look. “Maybe Luka could teach you how to fish next!”

Kagami furrowed her brow slightly. “I’ve never fished before, but I can probably cook one without setting the boat on fire.”

“She’s kidding,” Luka told her, rolling his eyes. “Fish in the Seine aren’t too good for eating,” he explained. “Too much pollution back in the day. Oh, the water is fine now,” he added hastily, seeing the concerned look in her eyes. “It’s just that the mud picked up all the pollutants. Let’s find somewhere to eat along the riverfront.”

As they left the boat and looked for a restaurant, Juleka and Rose walked ahead, chatting about the little shops and cafés along the riverfront, most of which were already closed for the night. Kagami found herself eyeing Juleka suspiciously. Luka was cute – Kagami had to admit that – but for as comfortable as she felt around him, something seemed to be… missing. He wasn’t _quite_ what she might consider her “type.” Too laid back and calm. Of course, she certainly enjoyed spending time with him, and Juleka and Rose.


	5. Chapter 5

Luka slowly stretched his arms and stood up after dinner, surreptitiously slipping a snack into his pocket for Sass as he did so. They had found a small seafood restaurant just off the river for their quick late meal. Looking around the table, his three companions all looked well-fed and happy for the trip. All of their songs blended together in his mind into a soft, soothing lilt of happiness and peace – and perhaps a little excitement

After Kagami paid for the meal with the card Agreste had given her for the trip, they all walked out of the restaurant together. Luka looked around at the others and announced, “After so long on the boat today, I’m going to take a walk along the riverfront to stretch my legs.”

Juleka asked, “Can I join you?”

When Luka nodded, Kagami said, “I think I’ll run to the store and find something for all of us for dessert.”

“That sounds nice!” Rose gushed. Luke thought he caught a flash of worry in Kagami’s eyes, but it was gone the instant Rose added, “But I think I’ll go and read on the boat while everyone’s gone.”

Luka and Juleka walked a couple blocks down the wharf away from the others and glanced back to make sure no one was watching before ducking into an alley. “I hope the others got here okay,” Luka observed, raising an eyebrow.

Juleka shrugged and gestured to the nondescript bag she had brought from the boat. “If not, I can just plant the cameras by myself,” she replied, transforming.

Luka nodded and transformed as well. The moment he had done so, his lyre lit up with a tracking signal showing that Ryoku and Miss Pinky were already near the riverfront and making their way toward the docks. In fact, they weren’t too far away. “Looks like we didn’t have anything to worry about,” Viperion noted, climbing the side of the building up to the roof with Bengalia close behind him. “We can do this just like we’d planned!”

Twin streaks of red and pink raced across the rooftops to meet them. Viperion shifted his weight from one foot to the other waiting for them. Ryoku was the first one to arrive, landing breathless at the peak of the roof across from him and Bengalia. “Fancy meeting you here!” she called, grinning in excitement. “I found a little piggy over by the docks, and I see _you_ found a tiger, so I guess our group is all here!”

Viperion returned her smile. “Just remember, the idea is to _not_ be noticed,” he admonished, though he continued to smile. He jumped backward, slid down the roof, and led the way to the dock, with the other three following close behind him. He noticed that Ryoku was running next to him and asked, “How was the trip?”

“Pretty good!” she replied. “I managed not to crash when I was at the wheel, so there’s that. You?”

“It was nice,” he answered, smiling back. He considered what else he could say and settled on at least _one_ detail that was safe. “We went swimming in the river on the way, which might be the best part of leaving the city!”

“Are you not a fan of Paris?” Miss Pinky asked curiously from behind them.

“Oh, I love the city,” Viperion told her. “It’s just that every so often it just feels too busy and crowded and I want to get away for a bit to slow down.”

“And you thought the best way to ‘slow down’ this summer would be taking the hero show on the road and hoping we don’t get shot at?” Bengalia asked, arching an eyebrow dubiously.

He shrugged. “I’ll take leaving the city and hanging out with friends, however it comes!” He put out a hand to stop the others on the edge of the warehouse across from the docks. Most of the perimeter lights were off, though a couple shone into the yard on either side of the perimeter fence. He couldn’t see any security guards, and no security cameras were visible. All the same… He withdrew the device Pegasus had designed for them and pressed a button to activate it. The lights on the side of the box blinked yellow for several seconds before turning to a steady green. He turned to the rest of the team and grabbed his bracelet. “Right, well, I’ll be back… now, I guess. Second Chance!”

With that, he jumped off the roof, walked right up to the gate, and jogged around it at a steady pace, one eye fixed on his miraculous timer. Nothing stood out to him on the landward side of the dock; one spot on the fence looked to have been pushed aside, so he took a photo of it with his lyre and continued. He reached the opposite side of the dock with about 30 seconds to spare and reset his timer.

“Time for Phase 2,” he announced to his companions, back on the roof. He jumped off again, but not so fast he didn’t catch Ryoku’s shout of, “There was a Phase 1?”

Scrolling through the photos on his lyre while jogging, he was pleased to see that the picture of the fence was still saved. He had asked Sass about it after the first fight with Night Bat, and the Kwami had assured him that once they had progressed sufficiently, many Snake users were able to retain recordings and pictures across multiple Second Chances. Considering what a challenge it could be to remember the different combinations and permutations over the course of a fight, he was relieved that he could actually take notes. This time, he followed the fence in the other direction and jogged around the dock on the river side. He noticed a couple breaks in the fence on that side and photographed them and labeled them on his map of the dock. With a minute left, he twisted his bracelet back to the beginning.

“Only one or two more,” he told the others.

“Don’t mind us,” Bengalia told him, smirking. “We’ll just be sitting here, twiddling our thumbs!”

This time, Viperion decided to cut straight to the chase. He turned to Ryoku and asked, “Can I borrow your sword?” She gave him a look of concern but handed the sword over immediately. “Thanks.” With that, he jumped to the ground, ran straight over to the fence, cut a hole through it, and pushed through. “Hey!” he bellowed, waving Ryoku’s sword over his head. “Anyone here!?!” Then he leaned against a forklift in the middle of the yard and casually photographed the yard with his lyre, checking his timer every few seconds to make sure he didn’t run out of time. Pegasus’ device continued to show a solid green light. When his timer had dropped to less than 15 seconds and no one had responded, he reset it again.

Back on the roof, Viperion sat down and started swiping through pictures. “All done,” he announced, hitting a button to send the photos to the others as well as Turing, Pegasus’ robot assistant.

“You did something?” Bengalia asked, arching her eyebrow and smirking at him.

Viperion stuck out his tongue at her as the others all sat down to go through the pictures together. “I found a couple places you could get in,” he told Bengalia and Miss Pinky, showing them on his map. “And as far as I can tell there aren’t any cameras or other security features – _or_ any guards within five minutes of here.”

Bengalia nodded and pointed to one of the pictures on her palm. “Is that a camera there?” she asked. “It’s right next to one of the spots for our cameras, but that shouldn’t be a problem for me. Miss Pinky?”

Miss Pinky pulled the picture up on her rake and started making notations on it. “I can do it,” she assured them. “I’ll just have to avoid the spot right below there and make sure the vines don’t cover up the camera so they don’t cut them back and find the camera.”

“Let us know if you get into any trouble,” Viperion instructed them, as Bengalia and Miss Pinky dropped to the ground and cautiously made their way to the closest hole in the fence. “Think I should use another one just in case?” he asked, glancing over at Ryoku, who was sitting with her legs hanging off the edge of the roof, leaning back on her hands. He started and furrowed his brow. Her song was so familiar to him – he’d even worked it into a song last month – but something about it sounded slightly… different. Freer. Like all of the tension she carried around both in and out of the mask was suddenly gone. And beneath the surface he could even hear a familiar strain, something he could swear he had been listening to all day…

“Probably not necessary,” answered Ryoku with a shrug. She nodded toward the spot where Bengalia had just activated In-Stripe-Tion and disappeared. “You trust Bengalia to do this without attracting attention, right?”

He nodded. “She’s gotten pretty good at this kind of mission,” he agreed.

“And when you scouted it you didn’t attract any attention – and you were trying to!”

He looked at her in shock. “How did you–?”

“I saw the tip of my sword in one of your pictures,” she interrupted him, smirking. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you did!”

He laughed and sat down next to her, letting his legs dangle off the roof also. “I suppose you’re right,” he admitted. He was quiet for a minute. “You sound different tonight,” he finally told her. “Good day?”

She nodded and flashed a bright smile at him. “One of the best,” she replied, giggling excitedly. “I’m on a trip with friends, doing something worthwhile to take out Lynchpin and his pet Bat, and the best part? My mother is still in Paris!”

He smiled. “I’m glad! You always seem so guarded, even if the miraculous _does_ allow you to open up more.”

“One more thing to be grateful to Marinette for, I guess,” Ryoku agreed.

Viperion leaned back and watched as a wall of creeping vines appeared from nowhere across one of the buildings facing the dock’s unloading yard. “We haven’t exactly talked since they gave us this mission,” he finally commented. “What do you think of it?”

Ryoku shrugged and rested her head comfortably on his shoulder. “Two teams, two cities,” she began. “Two rookies…” Viperion opened his mouth to reply but she hurried on, “I know, I know, I’ve only had my miraculous a few months longer than they have. And they did handle themselves well last month – I was watching from the Mansion, too, and for as much as things went to hell, they came up with a good plan on the fly. All the same, you and I work well together.”

“Well, you and Bengalia work really well together, too,” argued Viperion. “She’s really improved after all that training with you.”

“That’s true,” Ryoku agreed, nodding. “She’s definitely come a long way in less than two months.”

“I’m glad she has you watching her back on this mission.” He almost missed the funny look Ryoku gave him when he said that. Before he could say anything more, however, their attention was drawn to Bengalia and Miss Pinky returning from their part of the mission. “How’d it go?” Viperion asked.

“No problems,” Bengalia replied, “though _someone_ tried to trap _me_ in her vines!” She smirked playfully at Miss Pinky, who punched her arm lightly.

“How was _I_ supposed to know you were right where that camera had just appeared as if by magic?” Miss Pinky asked, widening her eyes innocently.

Viperion glanced down at the confirmation message from Turing on his lyre and looked up at Ryoku before nodding to the others. “Well, that’s that, then. See you in Le Havre in two days!”

Ryoku and Miss Pinky raced across the rooftops in different directions and dropped out of sight. Viperion and Bengalia ran back the way they had come, dropped into the same alley where they had transformed, and de-transformed. Luka twisted his neck to work out some of the kinks before he and Juleka made their way back to the slip where they’d docked the _Liberty_. Juleka went up the gangplank first, saying she was going to find Rose, and Luka was about to follow her up when Kagami jogged down the street from the opposite direction.

“Who wants ice cream?” she asked, holding up a shopping bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned it in a note on a previous story, but Viperion wouldn’t be able to just start another Second Chance after using it once. He would have needed to recharge first, which is why he and Ryoku decided against it.


	6. Chapter 6

Kagami woke up the next morning to the gentle rocking of the boat. Rose was still fast asleep in the other bed, snoring softly. Kagami sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked out the porthole. The city of Rouen was sliding past; at that moment they were hugging the far bank and motoring past the unloading dock that the heroes had visited the previous night. Kagami found herself smiling on catching sight of the creeping vines that had grown up the main warehouse, obscuring the new cameras from view. They looked completely normal; if she didn’t know any better, she would probably assume they had been growing there for years.

Turning away from the window, she dressed quickly in a t-shirt and shorts, collected Longg from her suitcase, and made her way out into the main area, where someone had already set out cereal, fruit, tea, and coffee on the galley counter for breakfast. She grabbed an apple, poured herself a mug of tea, and opened a can of sardines and dropped a couple in her purse for Longg. Hearing voices from the deck, she quietly made her way up the stairs to find Luka and Juleka talking in the pilothouse with their backs to the door.

“I just think it would be simpler if I went with you,” Juleka was saying to Luka. “This is going to make things so complicated. What if something happens? What if we make a mistake?”

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got digital cameras,” Kagami called, leaning against the doorframe and sipping her tea. “If we make a mistake, we just try again!”

Juleka jumped a meter in the air and sprang back, spinning around and clutching her chest in surprise. Kagami thought she saw a blur of color on the console, but when she looked back she only saw the depth gauge. “Oh!” Juleka fumbled. “That’s… not what I meant…”

“Worried about stains ruining something?” Kagami asked, smirking. “If we don’t use one of the pieces, it’ll be fine. Considering how many they sent with us, I don’t think Marketing will be too upset if we don’t get useable pictures with _all_ of them!”

“I–”

“What did I tell you, sis?” Luka interrupted, putting a hand on Juleka’s shoulder and grinning. “Kagami’s a pro. You have nothing to worry about!”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Juleka agreed, nodding a little too enthusiastically. She almost bolted out the door and down the steps. “I think I just need some coffee! That’s it!”

“Isn’t she jittery enough this morning _without_ the caffeine?” Kagami wondered, raising an eyebrow. She flushed. “Sorry. I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Luka assured her. “Juleka has always been nervous about modeling.”

Kagami nodded. “I’ve heard the story,” she assured him. “There won’t be any sentimonsters _this_ time!”

“I believe you,” agreed Luka. “So… now that we’re past the worst of the river traffic, do you want to try your hand at piloting?”

Kagami grinned and put her hand on the wheel next to Luka’s. He stepped to the side, and she took his place in front of the wheel to guide them around a cargo ship waiting for its turn to unload. Luka released the wheel to her and leaned back against the wall, watching her closely, one eye on the traffic around them. She sipped her tea slowly and tried to remember Luka’s directions for piloting. There were so many of these experiences that she had never had before because of her mother’s strictures – if this weren’t specifically for her summer internship, she couldn’t imagine her mother _ever_ agreeing to let her go on a boat trip for two weeks with friends! And yet, here she was with Luka and Juleka and Rose.

Juleka and Rose came up presently and sat on the deck to eat their breakfast. Once they were finished, Kagami gave the wheel back to Luka and brought out her camera for another round of shipboard photos with Juleka. Even though she wanted nothing more than to enjoy the trip, she did have to remember their project. After all, while this might be a cover for her Heroes of Paris mission, Adrien did say he was expecting something usable to come out of it.

Just before dinnertime Luka pulled the boat up to the dock less than a kilometer from the hotel where Agreste had rented a room for Kagami and Juleka. Their Uber was already waiting when they arrived, so they made quick work of unloading all their luggage and equipment off the boat and into the back of the van. Rose embraced both Juleka and Kagami before getting back on the boat; Luka hugged Juleka and then turned to Kagami, who shrugged and put an arm out for him to give her a quick hug also.

“We’ll be just across the bay if you need anything,” Luka reminded them, before unmooring and shoving off. Rose waved from the stern until a boat cut between them and they lost sight of the _Liberty_.

“Well,” Kagami observed as they climbed into the Uber and drove the three blocks to the hotel, “just the two of us hanging out around the harbor for a couple weeks!”

“Sounds like a blast!” Juleka agreed, grinning.

At the hotel each of them needed to push a trolley to handle all their luggage and equipment, but when they got to the suite they discovered that it was more than large enough to accommodate all of it. Each of them selected a room for themselves, leaving the rest of their equipment in the main sitting room, which had ample space for the trio of portable wardrobes they had brought. As she unloaded the clothing into the wardrobes, Juleka checked each piece individually to make sure it had not gotten torn during the trip there. A couple dresses were wrinkled, so she ironed them with the professional iron they had brought with them and hung them separately.

While Juleka was taking care of the clothes, Kagami went through the camera equipment. All of the cameras were in proper working order, as was her tripod. The batteries for their portable lights were dead and needed to be recharged, but everything else was intact. She breathed a sigh of relief. She still didn’t know Juleka as well as she wanted to, but she _really_ didn’t want _her_ mistake to ruin this trip – that wouldn’t be good for Juleka, and it certainly wouldn’t play well with Kagami’s mother! Everything about this trip had to be perfect, even _if_ it was just a cover for Kagami’s nocturnal hero work.

“What do you think we should do now?” Kagami asked. “Dinner, then start on the photos tomorrow?”

Juleka thought for a minute. “We could get a jumpstart and take a couple photos tonight at dinner,” she suggested nervously. “Which outfit would you suggest for ‘casual evening out’?”

Kagami looked through the wardrobe of fall clothing and pulled out a blouse with a pattern of stars embroidered on the front. Juleka gave her a small smile and went to take a quick shower before they left. While she was showering, Kagami sent a quick text to the other heroes to let them know she had arrived at Honfleur. Miss Pinky and Viperion responded quickly that they were in position at Le Havre, but Bengalia didn’t answer. Kagami frowned. If Bengalia had been delayed, this whole mission could fail. She would be able to sneak in and out in her Wind and Water Dragon forms to search for the information, but that would leave her without backup nearby. While she waited, she pulled out one of her cameras, inserted a fresh memory card, and checked it over to make sure the battery was fully charged for that evening. She was looking through that day’s pictures on her tablet and waiting for Juleka to finish applying her makeup in the bathroom when she finally received a message that Bengalia was in Honfleur. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and felt the tension in her chest ease.

Moments later the bathroom door opened. “How is my makeup?” Juleka asked shyly.

Kagami gave her an encouraging smile and got up to take a closer look. She grabbed a makeup cloth from the bag on the counter. “It looks perfect except–” she dabbed a spot on her cheek. “There!” She tossed the cloth into the trash. “So what are you thinking for dinner?”

“We’re right by the ocean, so it’s got to be seafood, right?” Juleka observed, raising an eyebrow.

“Sound good to me,” agreed Kagami, thinking that Longg would appreciate getting something freshly caught for a change.

They walked a couple blocks closer to the oceanfront and found a small family-owned seafood restaurant. Kagami asked the hostess about taking pictures inside, and the kindly woman smiled and nodded enthusiastically. When they were seated, Kagami held her menu in her lap so Longg could read it with her surreptitiously. In the end, she ordered the sea bream, while Juleka decided to get surf and turf. When the food arrived, Kagami took a few pictures of Juleka reading the menu, holding her plate, and even cutting small cubes off her steak before putting the camera away. “That’s enough for now,” she decided, grinning. “Perhaps we can take a couple more on the way back to the hotel.”

“Fine by me,” agreed Juleka, looking at the food appreciatively. “I don’t want to let any of this go to waste!”

“I still can’t believe Agreste agreed to let _me_ come and spend two weeks taking pictures here,” Kagami commented, dropping a couple pieces of fish into her lap for Longg. “Adrien definitely pulled some strings for this trip!” _More than you’ll ever know_ , Kagami added mentally.

“I know what you mean,” Juleka replied, smiling animatedly. A piece of steak fell off her fork, but fortunately it appeared to fall on the bench next to her instead of her blouse. “That they trusted _us_ for a trip like this? That is really exciting!” Her excited smile faltered a little and she looked suddenly nervous. “I’m glad I’m hanging out with _you_ here, instead of some ‘artiste’-photographer I barely know,” she admitted shyly.

“I know the type,” Kagami agreed. “I spent a week working with Marcel Brohm before this trip–” Juleka shuddered “–and that was more than enough for me…”

“Please promise me you won’t copy his methods,” Juleka asked anxiously.

Kagami nodded fervently. “Just two friends hanging out,” she promised. “It does feel like we haven’t gotten too many chances to do that before now – and yet I’ve probably spent more time in the last couple months with you and Luka than with almost anyone else!” Kagami smiled. “I’m glad I’m here with _you_ instead of some shallow, self-absorbed model I’ve never met before.”

“So yesterday was your first time on a boat,” commented Juleka. “What _other_ ‘firsts’ does this make for you?”

Kagami put a finger on her chin. “Let’s see,” she began thoughtfully. “First time going on a ‘business trip’ without Mother, first time learning to tie knots yesterday, first time going on _any_ sort of trip without Mother, first time going on a trip with friends, first time more than 200 kilometers _away_ from Mother…” She smirked.

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Juleka observed, arching an eyebrow. “Having trouble getting out of your mother’s shadow?” She nodded knowingly. “I have another friend who’s mentioned trouble with similar issues – an overprotective parent who hardly permits friendships.”

Kagami inclined her head in agreement, knowing exactly who she meant. _Adrien definitely had an overprotective parent!_ “Adrien and Marinette have been very good about helping me get outside of Mother’s shadow – at least when they can,” she amended.

“I suppose this trip really _is_ about more than just taking pictures,” Juleka noted as they got up to leave, giving her a small smile. Kagami gave her a look of confusion and she explained, “It’s also a chance for us to have fun!”


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Luka sat on the top deck and strummed his guitar contemplatively while waiting for Rose to wake up. The trip downriver had given him a few ideas for new songs, though he wasn’t sure where any of them would be going. After his talk with Ryoku two nights ago, Luka had realized that perhaps he should add a verse to the song he’d written for her, reflecting the new change he’d recognized in her heart song. Not for the first time, he found himself plucking her song absentmindedly, along with the harmony line that he was still fine-tuning to accompany it.

“That’s very pretty,” Rose commented, coming up on deck with a cup of tea in her hand. She sat down on the bench across from him and closed her eyes to listen, humming along quietly and waving her hand to the beat.

“Sleep well last night?” Luka asked, smiling.

She nodded and stretched one arm. “The rocking of the waves always puts me right out.” She giggled. “Of course, that also makes it harder to wake up, so…”

After playing for a few more minutes, Luka put his guitar back in the case – he’d had enough close calls with seawater to be cautious – and stood up. “If we’re going to find a venue for our first concert outside Paris, there’s no time to start like the present!” he announced. “If – that is – you’re ready?”

Rose put her empty cup on the table and nodded, picking up the pink purse she’d started carrying a few months earlier and slinging it over one shoulder. “There’s a lot of city to cover!” she agreed, racing down the gangplank.

Luka checked to make sure Sass had found his accustomed spot in his pocket and had a couple snacks for the day. Satisfied, he pocketed the boat’s ignition key, stowed his guitar under a bench, and followed Rose a little more slowly. Rose was waiting for him on the quay, her phone out and already taking selfies of herself standing in front of the boat. She threw one arm around Luka the moment he was close, snapped another photo, and quickly uploaded it to Instagram. “Are you planning to photograph the whole trip?” Luka asked, smiling in amusement.

“Of course!” Rose replied, clapping excitedly. “If Jules and Kagami are going to, why can’t we?”

Luka smiled encouragingly, though inwardly he found himself grimacing. Admittedly there was only a minute chance of it, but if Rose posted on Instagram _everywhere_ they went… and he steered them to all the harbor locations that he and Miss Pinky visited… could Lynchpin connect the two? They already knew that Lynchpin was more than capable of something like that – Chloe’d had the bruises for close to a month to prove it! What if he put Rose in danger? At the same time, he couldn’t exactly tell her _not_ to take pictures…

He would just have to trust in their anonymity as tourists – there _had_ to be other Parisian tourists in Le Havre for these two weeks, right? Miss Pinky was here, too, after all…

Rose had already raced ahead along the quay, taking pictures of all the ships tied up alongside theirs. Luka broke into a jog to catch up with her. He looked around as they walked, taking in the sights. The sun was bright in the sky, and there was a cool breeze off the ocean that ran through Luka’s hair. Walking past several restaurants, Luka noticed a street musician playing a guitar and watching the crowd; he tossed a couple Euros in the man’s guitar case, and Rose took his picture. As the morning progressed, as if by unspoken consensus, he and Rose worked their way along the shore toward the main commercial dock.

Around lunchtime, they were standing right next to the dockyard entrance, staring up at the imposing fence. Luka could see a handful of cameras along the perimeter fence, as well as another one mounted on the side of the building. He heard a shutter noise and looked over to see Rose taking pictures on her phone, a look of fascination on her face.

“The docks here are so big!” she squealed. “We don’t have anything like this in Paris!” She turned and took a picture of a container ship being maneuvered into port by a tugboat. A security guard walked over to them, and Rose insisted on taking a selfie with him.

Luka looked around, cataloguing the layout as best he could from the ground. He could already see a few gaps in the security cameras’ coverage that might let him get a little closer to the building before activating Second Chance. Perhaps after lunch he would suggest to Rose that they check for an open space on the other side of the shipping dock so he could see the landward side. She might not be too keen on that long of a walk in the heat of the afternoon, though… “Want to stop at that café for lunch?” he asked when Rose jogged back to where he was waiting.

“That sounds good!” she agreed readily, flicking through the pictures on her phone. He was about to ask her not to post them on Instagram – Lynchpin probably _had_ Instagram – when she added, “Let’s sit outside in the sun!”

Luka nodded and they found a table in the outside patio, Luka with his back to the dock. He looked down the shore, watching the people walking along the boardwalk. As they ate he caught strains of happy melodies from the people passing by, all blending together into a single song, light and bouncy – the song of the oceanfront? Idly Luka found himself moving his fingers in a pattern, playing on air-guitar the song that he was hearing. Perhaps when they returned to the boat for dinner he could try playing it for real.

“Whose song are you hearing now?” Rose asked curiously. He looked up to see her pointing her phone at him.

“Were you recording me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. She simply smirked in response, and he chuckled. “Everyone’s song,” he finally replied, smiling. “The ‘song of the shore,’ maybe.”

Rose nodded slowly. “How amazing would that be, to play that here!” she enthused, clapping her hands. She gave him a curious look. “You still haven’t told me whose song it was that you played at the Gala last month. The same one you were playing this morning.”

“Nope.” He smirked on seeing her pout at his answer. “Just a friend who’s really lonely and looking for friends.”

“You realize that describes about half the people we know, right?”

He nodded, laughing. “Something special about this one, though.”

Rose hummed contemplatively and pushed her plate away. “What do you say we go and check what’s on the other side of the dock?” she suggested, standing up and making sure she had her purse.

Luka hid his surprise as he stood up as well. He had expected that _he_ would need to convince _her_ to walk around the docks. But he wasn’t about to question it when _she_ suggested exactly what he needed! “Sounds like a plan,” he agreed.

That afternoon they worked their way around the docks – Rose taking pictures the whole time. Luka noticed a spot right near the control building’s rear entrance that appeared to have a camera blind spot. He logged it away in his mind as something to check out that night. On the far side of the docks they found a small strip of sand set aside as a private beach, probably large enough for a couple hundred people to stand comfortably.

“This looks cozy,” Rose murmured, taking a picture of the beach as well as the sign at the entrance.

“Maybe the club would host a concert,” Luka agreed. “We could set up a stage on one side of the beach, put a table of merchandise near the entrance… We couldn’t sell a ton of tickets with the size, but it would definitely give us exposure.” A horn sounded from the docks. “We’d just have to find a time when the docks are _closed_ ,” he added, grimacing.

Rose nodded, copying his expression. “It’s only the first day,” she noted. “And it’s almost dinnertime. Maybe we’ll find a better spot tomorrow.”

They turned away from the private beach and called an Uber to bring them back to the boat. Luka was about to go downstairs and prepare dinner when Rose said she wanted to. Instead, Luka sat down on a bench on the top deck and plucked his guitar, working out the song that had come to him at lunch. He’d been picking away at it for a half-hour when his phone buzzed with a message from Miss Pinky, along with a couple dozen photographs of the dock area. He nodded approvingly: she hadn’t included any distinguishing features to show who had taken the pictures. She also didn’t seem to have gotten any closer than the front gate, either. But even with that she had still managed to photograph almost every angle of the main building; in the pictures he noticed another security camera he hadn’t seen that afternoon. There were a couple photos of the back entrance blind spot as well. At that moment Rose called upstairs that dinner was ready. Luka wrote a quick reply to Miss Pinky that he would meet her on the landward side atop a warehouse before joining Rose for dinner.

“I think I want to go for a walk this evening,” Luka announced after dinner while cleaning up the dishes.

Rose nodded and finished off her water bottle. “I think I might do the same thing,” she told him, refilling her water bottle and climbing the stairs.

Luka watched her go in surprise. If they were both going to take a walk, why wouldn’t she suggest walking together? If she’d asked, he would have had to say “no,” of course – he couldn’t go for a walk with Rose when he was trying to sneak away and meet Miss Pinky. Luka furrowed his brow. That was twice today that Rose had gone along with exactly what he needed for his Hero mission… With a shrug he followed her up the stairs, only to find the deck deserted. Finding an alley a couple blocks from the boat, he transformed and ran across the rooftops to the meeting spot.

Viperion arrived a couple minutes later to find Miss Pinky already waiting for him. “How was the trip?” he asked.

“It was fun!” she exclaimed. “I came with friends, and we had a blast on the way! This is going to be so amazing! I just hope we don’t run into trouble while we’re here,” she added, frowning.

Viperion grinned. “We should be fine,” he assured her. “If anything happens, Bengalia and Ryoku are just across the bay.”

“I know,” she agreed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She looked over at the docks. “Ready to do this?”

He nodded and jumped off the roof, Pegasus’ RF detector in one hand. Based on the pictures Miss Pinky had sent, he figured that he could at least make it halfway to the building without coming in range of a security camera. Without slowing down, he slid through a hole in the fence, ran partway there, and muttered, “Second Chance.” The yard was deserted and dimly lit. He didn’t see a single security guard on that side of the building. He jumped midstride, kicked the back door open, and raced up the stairs as the alarm sounded. Based on the briefing, the shipping office was on the right at the top of the stairs. He raced up the stairs at a breakneck pace and burst through the door. The information he needed would be on the computer; mercifully, the manager had left it on. One of the strings on his lyre pulled away from the body in the shape of a USB cable, and he plugged it in and hit a couple keys to clone the hard drive onto his lyre.

Footsteps in the corridor outside were Viperion’s only warning that the building was not entirely deserted. A glance at his timer showed that he was down to a minute before he would have to reset it, and the files would take another 45 seconds to transfer. He grimaced and ducked behind the desk, a moment before someone shined a flashlight into the room. Footsteps entered the office, and Viperion could see black shoes approaching. Five seconds. The computer beeped to indicate that the file had transferred. With a sigh of relief, Viperion reset his timer with two seconds to spare.

On the second round, Viperion removed one of the strings from his lyre, slid it through the doorjamb, and used it to pull the door open. His caution wasted twenty seconds, and he kicked the office door open to save a couple extra seconds. In addition to the computer files, Pegasus also wanted to know of any printed records. Viperion quickly tossed the office, searching for any hidden compartments. He had less than ten seconds left when he stepped on a section of the floor that creaked unusually. He noted the location and reset Second Chance.

The third time, Viperion sliced through the outside door lock in half the time. Arriving at the office, he stomped on the creaky spot in the floor and pushed aside a hidden hatch to reveal a record book. He photographed each page of the book as quickly as he could, and finished with about a minute to spare. Finally, he twisted his bracelet.

Finding himself back in the middle of the yard, he sat down and brought up the storage on his lyre to go through the pictures. Satisfied that they were all clear, he reset Second Chance for the last time and carefully picked his way back out of the dockyard.

Miss Pinky was sitting on the edge of the roof watching when he jumped back up to join her. “I’m not going to lie: it’s a little weird that you just ran into the yard, stopped halfway, and then walked right back out,” she observed wryly.

Viperion rolled his eyes. “Got what we came for,” he told her, hitting a couple buttons to send everything to Pegasus. “They had some suspicious hidden records, so you may as well do your thing.”

Miss Pinky slipped quietly off the roof. With more caution than he had showed, she made her way into the dockyard. Viperion watched her pick a few spots and twist her rake in a circle in the dirt before she let out a breath and left. By the time she was back on the warehouse roof, the three new trees had already grown to shoulder-height. “Too many in inconvenient places and someone would notice,” she explained.

Viperion nodded in acknowledgement. “Same time tomorrow, then?” And with that, he pushed off and raced back toward the boat. As he dropped into a different alley to de-transform, a shadow jumped the alleyway above him; he glanced up just in time to see a blur of pink. _So Miss Pinky is staying in this direction from the commercial dock, too…_

Luka frowned and stepped back out onto the boardwalk and made his way back to their berth. Rose was just returning from her own walk when he arrived. “Have a good walk?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Uneventful.”


	8. Chapter 8

“What do you think of shooting a few photos here?” Kagami asked hesitantly. She and Juleka were standing next to a fountain in the middle of the park next to the main unloading dock at Honfleur. Kagami could see a pair of container ships in the distance, as well as an assortment of smaller boats motoring along closer to shore, steering well clear of the shipping lanes. Most importantly, Kagami had a clear view of the security office right next to the harbor’s main gate.

Juleka looked around the area and nodded. There were a few people around, but the immediate area was clear. “Fine by me if you think it will work,” she agreed. “Do we need to set up the lights or anything?”

Kagami dropped the bag with her “portable” lights, held up her camera, and took a couple test shots, making sure to get the harbor gate in the frame. “No, I think the sun is fine, as long as we line it up right.”

Juleka sat down on the fountain edge and smiled, batting her eyelashes coquettishly. “How do I look?”

“Mahvelous, dahling,” Kagami replied, giggling. Getting down to business, she directed Juleka to shift her position slightly and fold her hands a little differently and examined her on the camera screen to line up the shot correctly. “You know, that bracelet kind of clashes with this sundress,” she told her, pursing her lips. “Why don’t you take it off for the pictures?”

Juleka’s eyes shot open. “No way!” she retorted adamantly. “I’m not taking my bracelet off! It’s really special: my mother gave it to me.” She frowned and looked more closely at Kagami’s throat. “Besides, it’s not exactly like that choker matches your shirt!”

“ _I_ ’m not the one _in_ the pictures; _I_ ’m the one _taking_ the pictures!”

“The bracelet stays!”

Kagami rubbed her temples. These pictures might just be part of a cover story, but from what Adrien had said they were probably going to be used for something after all. She couldn’t let down Juleka by doing a terrible job – or have her mother finding out she blew off this “major project.” And there was no chance that Kagami would take off her miraculous just to prove a point! “How about a compromise?” she tried. “It’s not the bracelet itself so much as the rings. Can you take the rings off your fingers and tuck them under the bracelet? I can work with that.”

Juleka slowly nodded. “I can do that for the pictures,” she finally conceded, looking down at her hands and fiddling with her bracelet. “This bracelet is just… really special to me.”

Kagami furrowed her brow slightly; though she hadn’t known her well before then, she still couldn’t remember ever seeing Juleka wearing that particular bracelet – or even that style… or any bracelets at all for that matter – before a couple months ago. But she put it aside. “I understand,” she told her instead. “My choker is really special to me, too. My grandfather gave it to me.” She held up her camera to take another look. “Perfect! Just hold that pose.”

Fifteen minutes and almost an entire memory card later, Kagami was satisfied. They had switched positions and locations around the fountain a few times, and each time Kagami had been careful to take another few pictures of what she could see of the dock area and the office building they were targeting that night. Juleka went to the public restroom to change into a blouse and skirt combination, and Kagami carried their equipment over to the other side of the park, closer to the water. She took a couple pictures of the ships entering port, then a couple of the main part of the unloading area. She could see a couple more cameras on that side of the building, but there was also a clear path straight to the roof, if Bengalia wanted to climb the outside.

“What’s the plan for this set?” Juleka asked, appearing right next to her and almost giving Kagami a heart attack. Juleka snorted in amusement at Kagami’s startled look. She pushed her fringe to the side and arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Kagami half-shouted angrily. Mentally she kicked herself: she was a superhero! She shouldn’t be letting _anyone_ get the drop on her! Grumbling under her breath, she pulled a pair of sandals out of the bag and passed them to Juleka, who traded them with her flats. “Let’s get a few right next to the water,” she decided, gesturing toward the pathway along the water’s edge.

Juleka started walking slowly down the path, her skit blowing slightly in the ocean breeze, while Kagami carefully walked backwards in front of her to take the pictures. Once they had filled another memory card with photographs, Kagami packed up her camera bag, Juleka picked up the bag with the lights along with one of the backpacks holding the outfits they had used that day, and they returned to the hotel.

They were a block away when Juleka said, “I’m thinking takeout… how about I pick up a pizza?”

Kagami took the lights and backpack from her. “Sounds good. I’ll bring these up to the room and go through the photos from today.”

“We probably should show Adrien that we’re actually _doing_ something here!” agreed Juleka, chuckling.

“If he’s paying for us to go on vacation together, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it!” Kagami lugged the bags back to the hotel – since becoming a hero she had noticed her physical strength improving from all the exercise, but even so these “portable” lights were anything but… Once she’d returned to the room, she plugged in the camera to charge, tossed the backpacks of clothes, shoes, and accessories on the sitting room couch, and collapsed into the desk chair with her tablet and the day’s memory cards.

“Quite the exhausting day, Kagami-san,” Longg observed, phasing out of the camera bag and sitting down on the desk. “Enjoyable all the same, I hope?”

“Certainly, Longg-sama,” Kagami agreed, transferring the photos to her tablet. She quickly started sorting through them, placing the photos without Juleka in a separate folder. “A day working for Mother _may_ involve less physical labor, but it is also _far_ less fun!”

“You do seem to be having much more fun the last few days.” Longg gave her an evaluating look. “Dare I say you have made a few more friends?”

“I hope so,” Kagami told him, smiling. A few of the model photos hadn’t turned out well and she deleted them. “All my closest friends at the moment have Kwamis.” She froze. “Except Chloe,” she amended, frowning. Longg’s face fell at that. “I’m sorry. But you know what I mean. It would be nice to have a few friends who _aren’t_ part of the Heroes of Paris.”

Longg gave her an amused look. “Even with how close you have gotten to Viperion and Bengalia recently? With the opportunity this trip affords you to know them and Miss Pinky better?”

“Yeah, I suppose there is that,” she conceded, heat rising in her cheeks. She wrote a quick email to Bengalia with her pictures of the dock area, but before sending it she swiped through them quickly one last time to make sure there weren’t any distinguishing features – after Viperion’s mistake with her sword, her pictures needed to be perfect. One had caught the edge of one of their bags, and she removed it. “All the same, I am enjoying getting to know Juleka better.”

Longg nodded in agreement and phased down into the desk a moment before the lock clicked and Juleka arrived with the pizza.

“All done?” she asked, setting the pizza box on the counter.

“Just finished up a message to Adrien,” Kagami replied, shutting off her tablet for the evening. _Or at least that’s close enough to the truth_. “What did you get?”

“Sausage. You didn’t say anything, and that’s what I prefer, so…”

“That’s fine.” Longg preferred fish over meat, but he would still eat sausage. Kagami helped herself to a couple slices and surreptitiously picked a few sausages off and dropped them into the desk drawer where Longg had gone. She caught Juleka giving her a funny look, but she didn’t comment on it. “How did today compare to your previous photo shoots?” Kagami asked, hoping to divert her attention from the desk.

Juleka snorted and nearly spit out her first bite of pizza. Kagami frowned: the question wasn’t _that_ funny, was it? When she’d composed herself, Juleka answered, “It was a lot less formal than any of the shoots for Agreste. The first one there started off terrible and eventually became fairly laid back, but today was so much easier.” She shrugged. “This’ll be a good couple weeks.”

“I sure hope so.”

* * *

After they finished their pizza, Kagami went into her bedroom while Juleka picked out a bathing suit and announced she was going to try out the hotel pool. The moment her bedroom door was closed, however, Kagami transformed, opened her window, and climbed out onto the ledge. She grinned excitedly and breathed in the fresh night air, the scent of the saltwater from the ocean tickling her nose. Some days it seemed like this feeling of freedom was all she lived for. Those were the days when mother’s expectations threatened to crush her, when the weight of responsibility felt like too much for her to bear, when she wanted nothing more than to find out how far Lightning Dragon could take her in five minutes. She coiled her legs, gauged the distance, and jumped across the street to the next building. She rolled through the landing and was on her feet in an instant, racing toward the waterfront. She was a block away from the harbor when a familiar magenta figure landed next to her, matching her stride for stride.

“Ready for your big night?” Ryoku asked, grinning as she leapt the gap across a street.

“Definitely!” Bengalia agreed, running across a telephone line as a tightrope.

They stopped on the roof of a warehouse across from the harbor. Ryoku drew her sword and started testing different grips. “I noticed a blind spot along the wall on this side where you should be able to climb to the roof without being seen.”

“I saw it, too,” Bengalia assured her. “It won’t be a problem.” Having said that, she slipped off the roof and raced across to the fence. She climbed the fence without slowing down and shot across the dockyard in a matter of moments. Ryoku watched her carefully until she was nothing more than a magenta blur scaling the office building in the distance. She reached the roof and vanished into thin air. Moments later, Ryoku’s eye was drawn to a dark shape moving on the deck of a container ship resting at port and waiting to be unloaded the next day. She watched the ship for a couple minutes, but the shape didn’t show again. While waiting for Bengalia to return, Ryoku practiced her footwork and deliberately worked her way through fencing poses, finishing with her sword held horizontally next to her head and her off hand extended. Approximately five minutes after she had disappeared, Bengalia reappeared halfway down the building’s wall. Only a couple minutes later, she jumped onto the roof next to Ryoku.

“I got what we need, but no surprises at this one. Pegasus still needs to go through the data, but I think this one’s going to be a dead end,” Bengalia informed her.

Ryoku shrugged. “At least we still have two weeks to find something.”


	9. Chapter 9

“If we’re going to play a concert here, perhaps we should try to get our name out a little more,” Luka suggested over breakfast. He had been feeling adventurous that morning and cooked omelets. Of course, he’d had to be careful that Sass didn’t eat all of the bacon bits before he could work them into the omelets. He surreptitiously dropped a couple pieces of bacon from his omelet into his pocket for Sass.

Rose looked up from her own omelet, a contemplative look in her eyes. “That’s actually a really good idea,” she agreed. “That street musician the other day had a huge crowd around him in the afternoon on our way back here.” A couple pieces of fruit fell off her plate and she swept them off the table.

Luka frowned; normally Rose was so careful when she ate. Seeing her attention on him, however, he decided not to bring it up. Instead he replied with, “Your Instagram post probably didn’t hurt matters for him.”

“Kitty Section has picked up a few more followers in Le Havre this week,” she confirmed. “I really hope this trip will be good for us!”

“Perhaps we can do our own little impromptu concert?” he suggested. “We probably shouldn’t do it on the docks since there are already a couple of musicians around, though.” In fact, Luka already had a spot in mind for their little concert, one that was right next to the shipyard he and Miss Pinky would be visiting that night.

“That would be really fun!” she squealed, clapping her hands excitedly. “I have the perfect place for it: there’s a park on the main road into the harbor! We can play there and all kinds of people would be able to hear us!”

Luka tried not to let his surprise show. That… was actually the exact park he had been planning to suggest, though he had expected that she would need convincing to pick it. Unfortunately, it was _not_ terribly convenient for the tourists; they all stuck close to the water. And there was bound to be traffic noise from the road running next to the park and from the harbor interfering with the music. But it was certainly convenient for the locals. And it was quite scenic. So if _she_ was suggesting it… “That would be perfect,” he agreed, standing up and moving to the sink to wash the dishes. “It’s a good thing we brought the portable amp!”

Rose put a picture of the park on Instagram with a message, then ran into her room to brush her hair. Luka decided to change into a different shirt – Juleka had given him a Ryoku shirt as a joke a few weeks back. A snatch of melody played through his mind as he pulled the shirt on and checked that he had snacks for Sass before rejoining Rose in the main area.

Once they were ready for the day, Luka grabbed his guitar, adjusted the strap on his shoulder and followed Rose down the gangplank to the quay. Although the portable amp was on the heavier side, Rose had insisted on putting it on her own back since he already had the guitar. Luka had to laugh: the amp was a little unwieldy, and he had almost refused it when Max and Nino offered it to him. They’d worn identical smirks when they’d told him it was a first prototype, but it would probably work just as well as the second version… which in a field test they had discovered could be heard halfway across a continent!

What kind of field test had shown that was beyond Luka’s comprehension…

“This quay looks really bare,” Rose commented with a frown when she reached the bottom of the gangplank and stopped to wait for him. “I’ve thought that every morning when we leave, that it would be so lovely to come back and see a bed of flowers here.”

“It’s too bad flowers would take too long to grow,” Luka observed. “And it’s not really the time for planting them, is it?”

Rose hummed thoughtfully. “Not really,” she admitted. “Most flowers do best when you plant them in the spring. Some in the fall. Right now it’s definitely too hot to plant anything.”

“Maybe we can plant some if we come back for a concert in the fall,” he suggested, leading the way along the pier toward the park.

“Maybe…”

When they reached the park after a short walk, they found a small group of people already there thanks to the message Rose had put on Instagram for their impromptu concert. A cluster of mothers stood together around the playground at one end of the park where a group of children were playing. They passed a few couples walking in the shade of the trees. Luka even noticed a pair of older men sitting at one of the two picnic tables and sipping coffees. He sat down on the other table, put his feet on the bench, checked his guitar’s tuning, and started running through finger exercises on his guitar. As if that was a cue, people started moving in their direction. Rose stood nearby and watched him curiously. By the time a dozen people had gathered around them, Luka realized that, without meaning to, he had transitioned from his finger exercises into playing the song that had been playing on loop in his mind for most of the trip.

“Are you ever going to tell me whose song that is?” Rose asked curiously, sitting down on the bench next to him and fixing him with an excited look.

Luka smiled and shook his head gently, shifting to the new verse he was trying to write. “I keep telling you, she’s a special friend.”

“Oh, so it’s a _she_ ,” Rose giggled, clasping her hands together. A pair of teenagers joined the crowd listening to him. “You wrote a song for her? That’s so _romantic_! Is _she_ someone I know?”

Luka shrugged. “Maybe; I don’t know your life!” He looked up to see a crowd gathering in front of them, a few holding phones up to take pictures or record. Perhaps instead of Ryoku’s song, he should play the other one that had been on his mind during the trip. “Sometimes when I know someone well, I can hear the music playing in their heart,” he explained to the crowd, looking down at the guitar and adjusting his fingers. He struck a chord. “And sometimes the music from a lot of people can blend together and merge into something new and totally unique, like it did for me the other day while watching all of the people walking along the shore. This song is the one I’ve heard while visiting Le Havre.”

As he began picking the song out with his fingers, he heard a murmur run through the crowd. He looked up to find that their audience had grown larger. A girl approached Rose, who stepped away from the table. Luka could just hear her quietly telling the girl and her friends, “I’m so glad you like our music! We’re part of a band called Kitty Section, and we might have a concert tour in Le Havre if there’s enough interest!”

As the last notes of the song faded, there was a smattering of applause from the crowd that had enlarged while he played. Luka smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. Rose was at the next table over, taking selfies with a group of kids and showing them something on her phone. He waved to her, and she eventually extricated herself from the crowd and came over.

“I was showing them how to find our music,” she explained sheepishly, waving to the kids. “That’s the one thing we didn’t think about with this. Do you realize we forgot to make any flyers or cards or _anything_ to hand out on this trip?”

Luka frowned, even as he shifted to one of the songs they had recorded on their last album and Rose began to sing. They were definitely getting their name out there with this impromptu concert, but it wasn’t going to have the desired effect if they couldn’t let people know how to find them while the music was fresh in their minds. Maybe Kitty Section really _did_ need that marketing consultant…

* * *

Viperion arrived at the rendezvous spot first that night and looked out over the docks, comparing the nighttime conditions with the photos that Miss Pinky had sent him. This time he could see a security guard patrolling around the inside fence perimeter. The run to the office building would be longer and more exposed, even without security cameras to worry about. He started timing the security guard’s route. The guard walked around to the other side of the building, and he started the timer on his lyre. At the same moment, however, his eye was drawn to a shadow on the docks. He watched for several minutes, but nothing moved.

While waiting for Miss Pinky, Viperion sat on the warehouse roof and started playing his lyre. His fingers ran along the strings of their own accord, picking out a melody he recognized – the song of Le Havre. He frowned and adjusted a string to add a harmony line.

“I like that song,” Miss Pinky commented, landing on the roof next to him and giving him a funny look.

“It’s what I hear from the people on the streets around here,” he answered. “All of their songs blend together and merge into this.” He stopped playing and replaced his lyre in its position on his back. “Well, time to get to work!”

Viperion dropped from the roof and stalked closer to the perimeter fence. The guard was on the opposite side of the compound and wouldn’t come back around for at least another five minutes. More than enough time to get in and out. He squeezed through a hole in the fence and raced over to the building. Just before reaching the building he activated Second Chance.

On his first run through, Viperion found the manager’s office and downloaded everything from his computer. On the second, third, and fourth attempts, he searched the manager’s office in increasingly unusual places for hidden records. Once he was satisfied that there was nothing to find, he returned to the roof where he’d left Miss Pinky. She was still standing in the same place he had left her, twirling her rake in both hands.

“All finished,” he told her. “Nothing to see at this one, so you probably don’t need to worry about planting any trees tonight.”

“Okay!” Miss Pinky cheered. “Same time tomorrow, then?”

Viperion nodded and sent the files to Pegasus. By the time he looked back up, Miss Pinky had already vanished. He ran across the rooftops to find a convenient alley near the boat to de-transform.

Five minutes later Luka was walking up the gangplank onto the boat. Rose was sitting on deck with a small bowl of fruit in her lap. He was about to greet her when he looked back down at the quay alongside their slip and did a double-take. _Have those irises always been there?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone remember when the first “field test” of that amp happened? And who owns the other one?
> 
> The marketing consultant line is a callback to “The Life and Times of the Heroes of Paris,” chapter 7, when Kagami half-jokingly made the suggestion to Luka.


	10. Chapter 10

Kagami tugged the strap of her camera bag up higher on her shoulder and followed Juleka into the Naturospace greenhouse. The moment they were inside, her eye was drawn to the fluttering movement of hundreds of butterflies beating their wings. Though she wasn’t an expert by any means, Kagami could pick out dozens of different species of butterflies and many more varieties of flowers in every color combination. With the number of butterflies fluttering around, she could think of only one other place that could possibly compare. And there wasn’t nearly as much variety there.

“This place is amazing,” Kagami breathed, inhaling the aroma of thousands of flowers all blending together. “Have you ever seen so many butterflies in one place?” she wondered.

“Not too many places like this in Paris,” Juleka agreed, looking around appreciatively.

Kagami surreptitiously took a photo of Juleka stooping to smell some of the flowers. The colors in this skirt and blouse combination worked surprisingly well with these flowers. “Turn a little more in this direction,” she instructed, kneeling to find a better angle. Juleka turned her head slightly and gave a small smile. When she brushed her hair aside, Kagami caught a flash of color near her shoulder, but it didn’t appear in the picture. _Probably a butterfly that moved away_.

Juleka moved to a different area and crouched between two flowerbeds, and Kagami took another dozen pictures. “Do you think this would work for the fashion show?” Kagami asked.

Juleka shook her head and straightened her fringe for the next picture. “No, at least not any of the ones I’ve seen,” she told her. “Maybe that park we went to the other day would work for an outdoor show, but for an indoor fashion show we would be better off in the hotel ballroom.”

Kagami nodded and snapped a few more pictures. “It was a thought.” Satisfied, she nodded to Juleka. “Let’s see how the spaghetti strap works with that skirt,” she suggested.

“Might be too busy with the floral pattern,” replied Juleka, examining the skirt with a frown. “I’ll put on the lavender Capris.”

While Juleka found the bathroom to change, Kagami busied herself with photographing some of the butterflies on her phone. Perhaps Sabrina would enjoy seeing some of these pictures. Idly she wondered if the species of butterfly affected the Akuma it produced. _Probably not_ , she decided, though she sent Sabrina the question along with the pictures anyways.

“How does it look?” Juleka asked when she returned, giving a twirl.

“The floral _would_ clash with the butterflies,” Kagami acknowledged with a rueful grin. “That’s why _you_ ’re the model!”

“And don’t you forget it!” Juleka smirked. She held her hand out and caught a butterfly on her finger. Kagami took a quick picture with her phone.

“Could you send that to me?” Juleka asked eagerly, looking over on hearing the camera sound. “I have a friend who’d probably love to see that.”

“Sure.” After sending the picture to Sabrina, she also sent it to Juleka before putting away her phone and switching to her camera. “You’ve got this modeling thing down!” she commented as Juleka seamlessly shifted poses while keeping a pair of butterflies perched on her hands.

Juleka shrugged. “I guess it’s practice,” she replied, smiling softly, “though I think I prefer posing for you over some of the official photographers Adrien employs.”

Kagami smirked. “Are you _really_ sure I shouldn’t take lessons from M. Brohm when we get back?”

“Please don’t!” Juleka made a face, and then glared at Kagami when she heard the shutter click. “Delete that!”

“Nope!” Kagami looked at the photo and burst out laughing. “Should I send this to Luka first or to Rose?”

“Do that and I’ll kill you in your sleep!”

After taking another round of photos in the bird enclosure with the other top they had brought, Kagami and Juleka finally left the Naturospace to get lunch. A couple blocks away they found a street vendor and bought a few fish tacos. Kagami slipped a couple pieces of tuna off of one into her purse for Longg. They sat down on a bench beside the water to eat while watching the river traffic.

“So,” Kagami began, looking at Juleka curiously, “do you plan to keep modeling long-term? You’re really good at it.”

Juleka blushed lightly. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’m glad Adrien gave me the chance, and I really want to keep doing it, at least for now. But I don’t know.” She shrugged noncommittally. “Luka really wants to follow his dream with Kitty Section, and Ivan and Rose and I all want to see where the band can go – especially if we can arrange a tour after this summer. So maybe that will happen instead. I’m pretty sure Adrien would be fine if I do both and just schedule modeling around tours.” She laughed. “A little hypocritical if he _didn’t_!”

Kagami giggled. “Sounds like you know what you want.” She sighed and stared off over the ocean. “I wish I knew.”

“You don’t?” Juleka asked in surprise. “The way you always talk, I just assumed your life was already planned out.”

“It is, practically down to the minute,” she answered, frowning. “And that’s the problem. It’s all _Mother_ ’s plan. _She_ knows exactly what I should be doing every step of the way, starting with recruiting my own marketing clients as a test run, then internships, then taking on some of our major clients like Agreste fulltime, and finally taking over the company so she can retire. If something doesn’t fit the plan, it is forbidden. She even vets my friends for professional suitability.” She laughed sardonically. “The only deviation from the plan she has allowed is this summer, and even _that_ is still kind of within her plan since it’s still an internship in marketing _and_ for one of our major clients!”

Juleka stared at her in shock, her mouth hanging open. “That’s… terrible,” she finally managed. “Mom has _never_ had any expectations for us. She’s only ever given us freedom to make our own decisions.”

“‘Freedom’… what’s that?” Kagami asked rhetorically.

“At least you get _some_ freedom, right? I mean, you hang out with the band all the time…”

“Not with Mother’s permission… I’ve perfected the art of sneaking out on her!” Kagami chuckled. “I guess it’s not _so_ bad… Marinette has been a lifesaver in helping me find ways to use Mother’s plan for my own benefit. Her parents were my first client this year, and all that means is taste-testing pastries and listening to her father’s jokes on a regular basis before hanging out with Marinette!”

“Well, if you ever decide you’ve had enough of the _plan_ and want to just sneak out and run away, you can always come on tour with us. Kitty Section could always use a groupie!” Juleka let out a giggle. “You’ve hung around the band enough this year for it!”

“That sounds a thousand times better than _Mother_ ’s plan for me,” Kagami agreed, grinning. “Just don’t tell _her_ about it. ‘What marketable skill will that teach you?’” she mimicked.

* * *

After dinner, Kagami went down to the business center, ostensibly to call her mother. However, she walked straight past the business center, through the lobby, and out the front doors. She ducked into an alley a couple blocks from the hotel, where Longg phased out of her purse.

“Are you not going to speak with your mother on this trip, Kagami-San?” he asked, cocking his head curiously.

She made a face. “I’m sure I should, Longg-Sama, but I really don’t want to. As long as she isn’t checking up on me during this trip, I’m not going to invite the conversation!”

“I am sure that she cares about you deep down,” he pointed out.

“ _Deep_ down,” Kagami retorted, frowning. “And she has a funny way of showing it.”

She transformed and leapt up to the roof of the apartment building next to her, turning from there to find the docks a few blocks from the Naturospace where she was to meet Bengalia. Her partner had already arrived at the warehouse when she dropped onto the roof next to her.

“It looks like you can get in and out on the back wall with no problem,” Ryoku noted. “I do see a security camera there, though.”

Bengalia scoffed and looked down at her RF detector. “I can evade a single security camera in my sleep while blindfolded! And I don’t even need to be invisible to do it.” She walked across to the opposite side of the warehouse roof, dropped into a sprinter’s stance, and raced up to the edge before leaping into space and flying over the fence. She grabbed the top of the fence with her hands and pushed herself off as she passed over it, flipping to sail feet-first and gaining momentum as she did so. She landed catlike in the middle of the loading yard, sprang up, ran across the yard, clambered up the side of the building in an instant, and disappeared on the roof.

Ryoku watched for a minute, waiting for someone to respond to the creaking fence, but no one came. Satisfied that they were alone, she started pacing along the top of the roof. Walking back to the edge she thought something moved in the shadows along the pier next to a container ship waiting to be loaded the next morning. On closer inspection, however, she couldn’t see anything there beyond a forklift. With a shrug she drew her sword and started practicing. Carefully she moved across the roof, keeping her center of gravity above her feet and moving slowly through the stances. She ducked and bobbed to one side, at the same time bringing her sword up as if to push an opponent’s weapon out of the way, before lunging forward. Holding the pose for a moment, she stepped backward, pushed off into a flip, twisted in midair, and landed. She raised her sword horizontal on a line with her shoulders, elbow bent, pointing straight ahead with her off hand. On the far side of the roof, Bengalia leaned against a chimney and watched with some amusement.

“You really like your ‘shadow fencing,’ don’t you?” Bengalia commented, arching an eyebrow at her.

“Sometimes your best opponent is yourself,” Ryoku replied, unperturbed. Lightning-quick, she stepped forward and thrust with her sword. “Ingrained routines stick with you, even in high-stress situations. Remember that.”

“Yes, Sensei.” Bengalia nodded solemnly before cracking into a smirk.

Ryoku rolled her eyes, smiled, and relaxed her stance, dropping the sword to her side. “Any problems tonight?”

“Nothing.” Bengalia shook her head. “But I did find a set of suspicious documents hidden in the false bottom of a desk drawer.”

Ryoku nodded. “That makes two. We’ll add this warehouse to the list for Miss Pinky to plant some trees around this one, just in case.” She gave Bengalia an evaluating look. “But for now…”

Ryoku leapt forward, raised her sword, and brought it down at Bengalia’s head. Bengalia dropped into a crouch, extended her claws, and caught the strike against her outside claw. She pushed the sword to one side while she moved in the opposite direction, and Ryoku ducked under the kick Bengalia aimed at her head. She flipped her sword into her other hand and grabbed Bengalia’s leg out of midair. Bengalia brought her other leg up, pinning Ryoku’s head between her shins, and allowed her momentum to pull them to the side and down to the ground. Ryoku went with the move but twisted them around just before they landed. Bengalia hit facedown and lost her grip on Ryoku. Ryoku landed on her back, threw her feet over her head, and landed on Bengalia’s back. Quick as lightning she grabbed Bengalia’s arm and pinned her to the roof.

“Not bad,” Ryoku acknowledged, releasing her arm and helping her up. “That’s a good move, but leaving the ground will leave you really exposed. The moment you aren’t touching the ground, I can control you.”

Bengalia put her hands together, retracted her claws, and bowed. “Shall we go again?”

Ryoku thought for a moment before noticing the beeping of Bengalia’s miraculous. “Not tonight,” she decided.

“That works for me,” replied Bengalia. “I think I want to pick up something for dessert, anyways, and it’s almost closing time for all the late-night stores.” With that she raced away and disappeared into the distance.

Ryoku followed her a little more slowly and de-transformed in an alleyway near the hotel. She was just about to walk inside when Juleka met her at the door, a bag of pastries in her hand. Kagami gave her a look of surprise.

“I was really craving sweets,” Juleka explained. She pulled out an éclair. “Want one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kagami and Juleka have talked about him several times, but M. Brohm is a callback to “An Adrienette Anthology,” chapter 7 (["The Photo Shoot"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23877634/chapters/57798964)). He was the photographer for Juleka’s first professional photo shoot. He almost broke her metaphorically, so Marinette almost broke him literally. Fun times.


	11. Chapter 11

Luka frowned at the message on his phone. Ryoku and Bengalia had found a couple of “promising” docks, and Ryoku thought they should switch partners for the night so Miss Pinky could put some cover around them. He sighed and strummed his guitar contemplatively. They hadn’t really discussed transport between the two cities; Bengalia and Miss Pinky couldn’t exactly call taxis! He was just thinking about the problem and wondering if he should consult with Sass, who was curled up inside his guitar case, when Rose came up on deck.

“We’ve gotten so much exploring done this week, I vote that we take a day off. Why don’t we go and see the others today?” she asked, clasping her hands and grinning eagerly.

“That would be fun,” Luka agreed, readily enough. “We haven’t seen them all week, and Jules wanted to try that seafood place we went to the other day.”

“Oh. There’s this adorable greenhouse along the water in Honfleur that Jules told me about, and they’re having an event this afternoon.” Rose’s face fell, but she brightened up. “Why don’t you drop me off at Honfleur and I’ll hang out with Kagami, while you and Jules come back here? At least for today?”

“That works.” Luka smiled in relief even as he stowed his guitar and headed to the pilothouse while Rose untied them from the dock. That solved the problem of Juleka getting to Le Havre. It was too bad he couldn’t offer Miss Pinky a ride to Honfleur if he was going over there already. As he motored across the bay, careful to avoid the major shipping lanes, he furrowed his brow: a deepwater fishing vessel appeared to be out of place, pulling in to dock at one of the unloading docks he and Miss Pinky had investigated earlier in the week. He filed it away for later as he steered through the wake of a larger boat.

Kagami and Juleka were already waiting for them at the pier when they arrived, and Juleka and Rose embraced briefly on the dock before Juleka jumped aboard the _Liberty_. As he was pulling away from the pier, Luka watched Rose grab Kagami’s hand excitedly and almost drag her in the direction of the greenhouse just visible a couple blocks from the waterfront. Kagami turned to wave to them, and then she and Rose disappeared behind a group of tourists.

“You know, we could have stayed with the others for a couple hours before returning to Le Havre,” Juleka observed once they were away from the pier, joining him in the pilothouse. Two Kwamis appeared from hiding to sit on the console looking up at them with some interest.

“Trying to play matchmaker still?” Luka teased. Juleka scoffed, and he shook his head fondly. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Are you telling me you aren’t interested?” Juleka asked, leaning against the pilothouse wall and raising an eyebrow. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

Luka felt his ears burn. It was true that he had enjoyed spending time with Kagami on the trip upriver, as well as all the other opportunities they’d had to hang out in the last six months. Underneath everything else, the song he heard from her heart was that of a sweet, lonely girl, strong steel yet hiding a gentle nature, and desperately in need of friends. And yet, that also described to a tee a different girl he knew, whose song was still stuck in his head… “Maybe I have looked at her that way,” he admitted. “But–”

“I know,” Juleka interrupted him, sighing. “You still have Ryoku’s song on your mind. But you may never find out who she is. After all, she guards her identity jealously.”

He shrugged. “I would say that we both know her pretty well by now,” he argued, turning into the slip they had rented for the duration of their stay. “Or at least who she really is. We just don’t know her name.”

“Names are kind of important,” Juleka pointed out. “And after spending a week with Kagami, I can tell you this one is just as sweet as the other, and you actually _know_ this one’s name!”

“That is true,” he conceded.

Sass and Roarr shared a look before Roarr fell backward, phasing through the panel and into the console. Sass looked up at Luka, a twinkle in his eye, and commented, “I am certain that you will find clarity as you spend time around them both. Both are fine young ladies.”

Juleka grinned. “See, even Sass agrees with me!”

Luka rolled his eyes. “In any event, if we had stayed with them it would have been that much harder to get back here in time.” Seeing Juleka’s questioning look he explained, “I saw something unusual on the way over.”

Juleka shrugged. “I guess being a hero doesn’t leave much room for breaks. So, having a good time in Le Havre?” she asked as they tied up the boat, changing the subject. “Seen anything good?”

“Haven’t you been following Rose’s Instagram?” he asked, surprised. “She’s taken at least a thousand pictures every day!”

“Really?” Juleka stared at him wide-eyed. “She’s hardly posted anything since you’ve been here. A couple photos from restaurants, a handful more of the possible concert locations you found, and then a bunch from that concert in the park.”

“Huh.”

* * *

That evening after dinner, Viperion and Bengalia lay down side by side on the roof of a warehouse whose roof partly hung out over the water, separated from the dock where the fishing boat had tied up by a small yard. A small group of men was working by the light of handheld flashlights to remove something from the fishing boat’s hold.

“I can’t see what they’re unloading,” Viperion muttered quietly. “Can you get a closer look?”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t sound so unsure,” retorted Bengalia, smirking. She dropped from the roof silently and raced across to the perimeter fence. Without breaking stride she scrambled up a tree Miss Pinky had planted three days earlier, crawled along a branch that hung over the fence, and dropped to the ground on the other side. She was invisible by the time she landed.

Viperion settled in to watch. Even knowing what to look for, he couldn’t see Bengalia. She disturbed a clump of dirt beside one of the buildings, but that was the only indication he got of her location.

He certainly wasn’t expecting the loud clunk on the warehouse roof behind him.

Before he could react, two massive hands picked Viperion up from behind and turned him around. Viperion stared wide-eyed up at an enormous man dressed in a dark grey wetsuit with a white snorkel mask covering his eyes, his hair pulled up in a Mohawk, and a small gold hoop in one ear. The man opened his mouth in a grin to reveal a row of sharpened teeth. Viperion’s jaw dropped open in surprise.

“I thought I’d find you here, Greenie,” the man commented in English, withdrawing a cutlass from his belt and holding the blade against Viperion’s throat, so close it left a thin line of red across his neck. “Here I thought maybe I’d found a good spot for a score. Two different ports on opposite sides of the bay, both filled to the brim with loot? Plenty of shady types hang around the docks, no one would be any the wiser if I… requisitioned… a couple of crates here and there. If the heat gets too hot on one side of the bay, I just swim over to the other side to wait it out. Worst comes to the worst, there’s _another_ port upriver where I could lay low for a while. A perfect situation – much better than any of the other ports I tried – definitely better than Suez. And what do I find? You and your colorful friends are _also_ hanging around here and playing hero. _More_ of you hero-types! Well, that’s going to end tonight: I could have a good thing going here, and I’m not going to have you and your kind messing it up for me!”

“What–?” Viperion stuttered, leaning back away from the cutlass blade that was centimeters from his carotid artery.

“What does it matter if I do my thing here?” the man interrupted, glaring at Viperion and shaking him roughly. “I’m just a simple man trying to make my way. And you big city heroes need to stay _out_ of my way and keep your noses out of my business!” He let out a low growl. “You see, I don’t need the competition, Greenie. Competition makes me… angry.”

Viperion pulled his legs up and kicked the man hard in the chest. The man stumbled backwards and let go of his collar. Viperion fell and landed hard on his back. The metal roof clanged with the impact. Viperion rolled over backward and came up to his feet, just as his attacker recovered. As he rolled he pulled his lyre from its spot on his back and lifted it over his shoulder just in time the block the man’s first slashing attack.

“My _name_ is ‘Viperion,’ not ‘Greenie,’” he told the man, ducking another slash and retreating a step closer to the roof edge. “And thanks for that: I thought I missed a spot when I shaved this morning! So what do I call you? How about ‘the Barber’? I’ll let you know next time I need a haircut!”

“I’m in the market for names,” the man replied, feinting to one side and catching Viperion with a punch to the gut. “Why don’t you call me ‘Il Pirata’? The grey thing says it’s had a lot of pirate masters before now, so what’s one more? I kinda like that, actually. I’m just stealing from ships anyways.”

Viperion back-flipped away from Il Pirata, throwing his lyre at his attacker’s head at the apex of the flip. Il Pirata raised his cutlass to block the attack, and Viperion dropped low, grabbed the lyre on its return, and swept Il Pirata’s legs out from under him. The “grey thing” sounded like a Kwami … “Why’s it always _me_ dealing with these nuts?” Viperion grumbled under his breath. In English he demanded, “So where did you find the miraculous? Or should I guess: you ‘found it in a cave somewhere in Eastern Europe’?”

Il Pirata scoffed. “You saying I could find another one of these there? Nah, I found this thing free-diving on a wreck in the Caribbean.” He sprang to his feet and kicked Viperion hard in the chest. “I have to say, this fancy jewelry comes in pretty useful!”

Viperion fell sprawled across the roof, cradling his stomach. He had lost his grip on his lyre; it had fallen off the warehouse roof into the bushes growing along the wall. He glared up at the imposing figure. “So you’re using this miraculous to steal from ports?”

“It’s a living.” Il Pirata shrugged and raised his cutlass to strike.

“No!” A magenta blur interposed itself between Il Pirata and Viperion as the cutlass descended. With practiced ease, Bengalia spun around with her back to Il Pirata, lifted her hand, and caught the slash against her outside claw. The cutlass slid down the claw and she pushed it aside, followed through the spin inside Il Pirata’s guard, and elbowed him in the ribs. Il Pirata gasped in surprise and lost his grip on his cutlass, moments before Bengalia turned to face him centimeters from his chest, jumped, and kicked him in the ribs, launching him off the roof and into the water. Il Pirata’s cry of surprise cut off abruptly with a splash. Bengalia stood stock-still, staring at the spot where he had disappeared.

Viperion slowly pushed himself up to his feet, shook his head, and put a hand on Bengalia’s shoulder. “Jules?” he asked hesitantly.

Bengalia’s shoulders shook with the release of pent-up energy as she retracted her claws. “He–he was going to kill you,” she whispered raggedly. She turned around and looked up at him, wide-eyed, and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him so tightly he could hardly breathe and burying her face in his shoulder. “I–I couldn’t let that happen.”

“You _didn’t_ let that happen, sis” he reminded her, putting his arms around her and rubbing soothing circles on her back. “You saved me.”

She laughed softly. “I had a little help,” she admitted, blushing. “I never could have done it without Ryoku’s training.”

Viperion laughed, too. “In that case, I’m _really_ glad you’ve been paying attention!”


	12. Chapter 12

When her phone alarm went off the next morning, Kagami shut it off with a groan and rolled over to try to get another couple minutes of sleep. Her legs were sorer than they had been all week – and she and Juleka hadn’t gone anywhere the day before! Instead they had stayed at the hotel to take test pictures in the ballroom to see if it would work for a fashion show! But the moment the _Liberty_ had arrived and Juleka had left with Luka, it had been nonstop activity. Rose had been positively bouncing when she dragged Kagami to the Naturospace and tried to go through the entire greenhouse in an hour. Then Rose had wanted to walk along the waterfront. Then it was the imposing church on the other side of town…

Meeting up with Miss Pinky that night and sitting on a roof to watch her back while she planted a half-dozen trees had actually been a welcome respite from Rose’s frenetic energy!

A throat cleared near her head, and Kagami glared up at her Kwami half-heartedly. “You have a couple messages,” Long informed her, thrusting her phone into her hand, a somber look in his eyes. “They are… significant.”

Kagami furrowed her brows. “What happened?” she demanded, sitting up and unlocking the phone. She saw a couple text messages and a voicemail.

“Just… read it for yourself,” he urged her.

The text message from Viperion was short and to the point. He cryptically asked her to meet him in Le Havre that night to give him backup. The voicemail from Bengalia, however, was far more informative.

“I–I don’t know how to say this,” Bengalia began. Kagami was surprised by the unusual quavering tone of her usually-confident voice. What could have happened to them last night? “Thank you! If it weren’t for training with you, I–I don’t know what would have happened! L–Viperion and I were at the docks, right? And some guy just… _attacked_ him! He could have been killed! I wasn’t there, and he was on the ground and the guy was over him–” Kagami gasped at that and covered her mouth. In the message, Bengalia caught her breath and continued. “Anyways, I used one of the moves you taught me to disarm him… I–I saved his life… and I couldn’t have done that without you… so… thanks.” The message ended.

Kagami stared at Longg wide-eyed. She opened her mouth to ask him a question, but closed it dumbly. There was just so much to process. Viperion had been in danger from someone… and Bengalia had saved him. The tone of Bengalia’s voice was not one she’d heard too many times before. She’d heard Marinette talk about Adrien in that tone, of course… “I suppose this is why Viperion wants _me_ in Le Havre with him,” she finally commented, banishing all other thoughts from her mind. Nothing yet indicated what kind of threat they were facing, but it had to be serious.

“What was that about Le Havre?” Juleka called, knocking on her door.

“Oh…” Kagami thought quickly. “I was just thinking that I haven’t seen it yet!”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Juleka told her, pushing the door open partway. “Since we’re taking the day off, I figured I’d take Rose to see more of the sights here!” She wagged her eyebrows. “Why don’t you have Luka show you around Le Havre?”

Kagami rolled her eyes, but decided to go along with it. She would need to be in Le Havre that evening anyways, and at least this way she could scope out the city in daylight first. “Sounds like a plan,” she agreed, smiling.

“Great! They’ll be here in an hour!”

Kagami quickly dressed for the day, deciding to go with her Viperion t-shirt. She tried to avoid wearing anything with Ryoku imagery – Marinette’s commissions being the exception – but there was nothing wrong with wearing a shirt inspired by one of the other heroes, right? Longg slipped into her purse with a fresh can of sardines, and she put on her good walking shoes.

Juleka smirked at her when Kagami walked out and met her in the suite’s sitting room. “The teal suits you,” she observed, raising an eyebrow.

Kagami shrugged. “Serpents are cool.”

After a quick breakfast, they walked down to the waterfront, where the _Liberty_ was already waiting. Rose bounded down the gangplank and threw her arms around Kagami in a quick hug before throwing her arm around Juleka. “Have fun, you two!” Rose called as the two girls disappeared down the pier, giggling with their heads together and whispering conspiratorially.

Kagami shook her head but quickly set to work untying the mooring lines and throwing them onboard. Once the last one was done, she ran up the gangplank and stowed it alongside the rail. As the boat pulled away from the dock, she started coiling the lines.

“Wow!” Luka commented when she entered the pilothouse. “You’d never guess last weekend was your first boating experience. We’ll make a proper sea-dog of you yet!”

She blushed at his praise. “‘Sea-dog’?” she asked, leaning against the console next to him.

“Yeah…” He pushed his hair back awkwardly. “I’ve had sharks on the brain this morning.” He glanced down at her shirt and grinned. “So is Viperion your favorite hero?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “Definitely top three,” she answered cagily. “Always so confident and in control. Usually,” she amended, frowning.

He gave her a funny look but nodded as they accelerated across the bay. Kagami sighed in contentment as she watched him maneuver the boat through the midmorning traffic. After Rose’s high-energy the day before, she was looking forward to a more relaxed day with Luka. She frowned and looked more closely at him. There was a thin cut across his throat. “What happened to you?” she asked with some concern.

His eyes widened and he gave her a confused look until she pointed to her throat, just above her choker. He felt the cut and chuckled in embarrassment. “I must’ve cut myself shaving,” he explained. “Did you have a good time with Rose yesterday?” he asked quickly.

“I did,” she replied with a smile, opening the pilothouse door as the boat bumped into its spot on the dock. “It was nice to have a day off from the photographing. Though I saw as much of the city with Rose yesterday as Juleka and I saw in the previous week! A laidback day sounds pretty amazing for today.”

“Even if my sister is trying to set us up?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her while they tied the boat up together.

“You figured that out, too?” she asked giggling. “Even _with_ that, it’s nice to have… friends.” Her face fell. “Before this year, I hardly had any of those.”

Luka put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m grateful I’ve gotten to know you better this year, Kagami,” he told her warmly. “I hope you consider me a friend?”

She smiled and covered his hand with her own. “Definitely,” she assured him. “After this trip, you and Juleka and Rose are _definitely_ my friends!”

“So, friend, what would you like to do today?” Luka asked, leaning against the gangplank.

“After yesterday?” she replied with a laugh. “I think a morning sitting on the boat sounds amazing!”

“Rose tired you out?” He chuckled. “I know what you mean. We’ve probably walked over half the city already!”

Kagami sat down on one of the benches and pulled her legs up to stretch her sore muscles as Luka pulled his guitar out of its case, sat down on the other bench, and began to play. The melody he played sounded vaguely familiar. Where had she – when he added a second harmony line to the song, she finally placed it. This was the same solo Luka had played at the Gala, the one he’d written for a friend – the one that sounded so much like what Viperion had called her “heart song.” The melody was delicate and light, with just a hint of bounce. The harmony he had added complemented it perfectly. She lay back on the bench, closed her eyes, and let herself be lulled to sleep by the sound of Luka’s playing.

She woke up to someone squeezing her shoulder. She tensed and her eyes shot open to find Luka leaning over her. She relaxed.

“Sorry,” he apologized, grimacing in embarrassment. “It’s been an hour and I didn’t want to accidentally let you get sunburned.” He laughed. “Jules fell asleep one time and sunburned from head to toe, even on the bottoms of her feet.”

“Let me guess.” Kagami arched an eyebrow. “She threw you overboard?” He smiled and inclined his head in a nod. “You’re fine,” she told him. “Though you’re lucky. I don’t normally take well to being woken up.”

Luka laughed. “You sound like someone else I know.”

She smiled and shifted to put her feet on the deck. Testing her calves, she nodded to herself and stood up. “Thanks; I needed that.” She stretched her arms and looked up at him. “Shall we take a walk?”

He nodded and allowed her to lead the way off the boat, his guitar strapped across his back. “It’s almost lunchtime, and there’s a really nice little café down the road.”

As they strolled down the boardwalk, she glanced up at him and commented, “I noticed that you added a little something to your song.”

“I actually saw my friend last week,” he explained. “Her song sounded a little… different. More excited. It’s kind of hard to explain. But I decided to add another verse to the song. What did you think of it?”

She snorted. _I’m not exactly a music critic,_ she didn’t say. “It sounded… joyful. Maybe a little happier than it did at the Gala. I liked it.”

He smiled. “It makes me happy to hear my friend happy. From what she told me, she doesn’t get many opportunities at freedom, but these couple weeks have given that to her.” He looked down at her gently. “A little like _you_ on this trip.”

“This is the longest I’ve been out of Mother’s ‘sight’ in years,” she agreed, almost giddy with enthusiasm. She sobered. “I almost wish this trip could last two _months_ instead of two _weeks_.”

He furrowed his brow and examined her a little more closely, until she almost blushed under his scrutiny. He shook his head and looked ahead. “You know, if this tour idea _does_ work out for next summer,” he began casually, “Kitty Section would definitely need a publicist to go along with us. Of course, that would be a pretty big commitment: at least a couple months on the road, visiting a different city every couple days, in several different countries… Do you think your mother’s company might have someone who could make that level of commitment?”

“You know,” Kagami replied thoughtfully, tapping her chin, “I think she might!”

As they sat and ate, Kagami watched Luka finger through something on his guitar and thought about the two guys who had been on her mind the most in the last week. In so many ways they were so alike, and both had such a relaxing, calming effect on her. Her trust in Viperion had been forged back in January in the heat of battle – she’d had to accept his direction and trust him because she’d had no other choice. And she had never had a cause to regret that decision since. Luka, on the other hand… she had learned to enjoy his company gradually over the months of their friendship. Her life was so regimented and structured; he was like his music: fluid, going with the flow, “free-styling.” While she could pick out structures in his music, the structure supported the music rather than caging it.

How different from what she experienced under her mother’s control. Being a Tsurugi may be a gilded cage, but a cage it was, nonetheless.

“Are you enjoying this song?” he asked her, bringing her out of her reverie.

She flushed on realizing that he had caught her staring at him. “It’s nice,” she finally replied. “Is it new?”

“It’s what I’ve been hearing from the port,” he answered with a smile. “I’m calling it the ‘Song of Le Havre.’”


	13. Chapter 13

“I had no idea you were such a good cook!”

Luka blushed in embarrassment at the compliment. “I’m not as good as my mom,” he replied, “but I try my best. I can’t cook too many things, but I can at least boil water.”

“Well, this sauce is amazing,” Kagami complimented him, taking another bite of pasta. “And the chicken is really tender and juicy.”

“Thank you.” He smiled, though something was nagging at the back of his mind. Ryoku’s song had been playing in his mind so much over the last week that he was hearing it even now when she wasn’t around… And then there was Kagami: something seemed to be bothering her. Her song was so light and joyful tonight, yet he could hear an ominous overtone just barely perceptible above it. It hadn’t been there when he picked her up in the morning, but it had been growing gradually as the day progressed. But what was it?

With a shrug, he cleared the table and started running water to wash the dishes. Kagami grabbed a towel, and they quickly fell into a routine to clean up the kitchen. “Thanks for helping,” he told her, handing her a pile of clean silverware. “You really didn’t have to.”

“Honestly, when you have servants and chefs and the like doing everything for you, it gets old after a while,” she answered, frowning. “This isn’t my _favorite_ part of the trip, but experiencing ‘normal’ is up there. Just getting a chance to be _normal_ for a night is such a nice change.”

Luka smiled. “Doing all the ‘normal’ stuff can get old, too.”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind it, even if it _did_ get old eventually.”

He checked his watch: he would have to leave soon to meet Ryoku. “I have a couple new song ideas I’m going to write down,” he told her once all the dishes were cleaned and put away. “It will be time to bring you back over to Honfleur and pick up Rose in a couple hours, so I will definitely be done by then.”

Kagami nodded. “It’s such a nice night out that I think I want to take a walk along the oceanfront while I’m here,” she replied, heading for the steps.

“Will you be safe walking along the pier at night?” asked Luka before he could stop himself. Kagami was one of the most capable girls he knew – she had the fencing awards to prove it. All the same, considering his experience the night before, he wouldn’t want _anyone_ wandering alone at night.

Kagami turned around and arched an eyebrow at him with an unimpressed look. “If anyone _did_ try to attack me, it wouldn’t be safe… for _them_!”

Luka raised his hands in surrender, and she left. He gave the stairs one last look before going into his bedroom and shutting the door. Sass was sitting on his dresser with a pile of Roaar’s beef jerky. “Do you think she’ll be okay wandering the port alone?” Luka asked worriedly. “I would hate to see Il Pirata attack her.”

“I do not think you need to worry about her,” Sass replied, a twinkle in his eye. “I think thisss one isss more than capable of protecting herssself!”

“I suppose you’re right,” Luka agreed, shrugging. “All the same, I think I should check up on her on the way to the meeting place. Sass, Scales slither!”

Viperion pushed the porthole open and crawled up onto the pier. It was largely deserted and dark enough for him to blend in with the shadows. The foot traffic along the waterfront was almost nonexistent, but even so he couldn’t see Kagami anywhere – and she had only left a couple minutes before him. He jumped up to the roof of the closest souvenir store and looked down the street in both directions, but couldn’t find her. Briefly he considered searching the riverfront just to be on the safe side, but that would make him late for his meeting with Ryoku. With a sigh he set off across the rooftops toward the warehouse where they were meeting, keeping one eye out for Kagami’s familiar black hair. She was nowhere to be seen; she probably walked in the other direction. He sighed again. He may not be able to see that she’s safe, but if that’s the case then at least that meant she probably walked _away_ from the last place he’d seen Il Pirata. As Viperion jumped from the roof of one restaurant to the one next to it, a familiar red figure jumped up to meet him, keeping pace with him easily.

“Good evening, Scales!” Ryoku called with a cheeky grin. “Long time no see!”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “I’m glad things have been nice and quiet for you this week.”

“Sounds like you had all the excitement on _this_ side of the bay last night,” she replied, eyeing him with some concern. “Why didn’t you say anything more in your message? If it wasn’t for Bengalia, I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he explained. “That and I knew Bengalia needed to get it off her chest.” They jumped across the street side-by-side. “I heard from Hato Gozen this morning,” he added. “Sass had no idea when I asked him, but Hato Gozen’s Kwami thinks this guy may have found the Shark Miraculous, based on my description of him and his cutlass.”

Ryoku nodded, her face taking on the serious look with which he’d grown so familiar over the course of their partnership. “So you wanted the two heroes here with the most experience to confront this guy?” she asked. “Makes sense.”

Viperion laughed ruefully. “I will admit, I would prefer facing Il Pirata with _you_ than with Miss Pinky – she’s enthusiastic and not a _bad_ fighter after going toe-to-toe with Tyran-X, but she doesn’t quite have your fighting skills yet! But–” he ran a hand through his hair awkwardly as they landed on the warehouse roof where he’d fought Il Pirata “–you would probably be better off fighting Il Pirata with _Bengalia_ at your side than me. I didn’t exactly handle myself very well last night.”

He saw Ryoku looking at his face a little more closely, her eyes drifting down to the thin cut along his neck just above the collar of his suit, before she turned to scan the rooftop with a practiced eye. Viperion could hear a vaguely-familiar strain of discord in her song, echoing the tension evident in her shoulders. “Maybe after this I need to train _you_ ,” she suggested quietly without looking at him. “At least that way you might be able to protect yourself from people with swords.”

Viperion knelt over the spot where he’d first seen Il Pirata. He wasn’t hopeful for finding any clues, but he wanted to see for himself the evidence that he’d survived. It was strange: over a year of experience as a hero, and this was the closest he’d actually come to being killed. He’d been in life-and-death fights before, but always with a team – or at least a partner (Ryoku as often as not over the last few months) – and almost always with Second Chance already active. This time he’d been caught unaware and alone, and with no opportunity to activate Second Chance during the fight. And as a result it could easily have been his _last_ fight. “Maybe I should take you up on that offer,” he agreed, looking up to find Ryoku watching him intently. “As it is, I’m grateful you’ve been training Bengalia so much. That’s probably what saved my life last night.”

Ryoku wore an unreadable expression. “She sounded really worried in her voicemail.”

He nodded in agreement. “Even after everything she’s already experienced as a hero, I don’t think she was really expecting how… _real_ this life can suddenly become,” he answered, frowning. “One day she’s hanging out with friends, but the next? Maybe she’s fighting to save her brother’s life.”

She smiled fondly. “It sounds like the two of you are really close.”

He grinned. He and Juleka were definitely close. Even though the boat had another bedroom, they’d never considered moving into their own rooms; they were used to sharing, and they had a whole boat if they ever needed space. “You should see how we are outside the masks!” he joked. He shook his head. “I’m sorry; I forget you’re an only child.”

Ryoku gave him a funny look, brows furrowed. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Instead she looked around the roof again and asked, “Do you see anything useful?”

He shook his head and frowned, plucking a few strings on his lyre. “Nothing. He’s not a shark _or_ a pirate; at the moment, he’s a ghost.”

“Is that my song you’re playing?” she asked after listening for a couple minutes.

He cocked his head to listen, and chuckled. “I guess I am. It’s sounded so much clearer lately, and I’m not really sure why. I did add a verse to it this week, though.” He smiled gently. “I’m really glad to hear you so happy on this trip.”

“I am, too,” she replied, looking down at the roof. He thought he noticed a hint of pink in her cheeks.

He frowned. “Something sounds different tonight,” he commented hesitantly.

“Of course it does,” she answered, meeting his eyes and closing the distance to stand right in front of him. “I was worried about _you_ all day!”

“I’m okay,” he insisted, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Really. I promise.”

“Very well.” She stepped away from him, drew her sword, and raised an eyebrow a moment before she lunged. Viperion sidestepped just in time to avoid the sword tip. “Your training begins now!”

Viperion held up his lyre with both hands and blocked the strike that she aimed at his side, but the sword darted away a moment before it would have hit. He lurched forward off-balance, and she spun around and slapped the flat of her sword against the arm with his miraculous.

“Keep your center of gravity over your feet!” she called. “Don’t over-commit to any one move!” She stepped back and reengaged, aiming a strike at his legs. He leaned over and dropped his lyre one-handed to block, but instead she smacked him in the back of the head with her fist. “You over-committed!”

“You really aren’t going to go easy on me, are you?” he grumbled, grimacing and rubbing the back of his head.

“If Il Pirata agrees to go easy on you, then _maybe_ I’ll let up a little bit,” she retorted, aiming a punch at him which he ducked, only to move right into her follow-up kick. “The more bruises I give you when it’s just training, the less blood you’ll lose when it’s real.” Her arm and sword turned into a blur cutting at his neck. He ducked the strike, but she reversed course and smacked the flat of the blade on his opposite shoulder anyways. “There are a lot of injuries you can undo with Second Chance,” she reminded him, poking him in the chest with her finger, “but there are still some you can’t.”

“I know,” he acknowledged with a sigh. “I’ll do better.”

“You’d better,” she told him, glaring into his eyes fiercely.


	14. Chapter 14

Kagami examined Juleka carefully over the table where they were eating lunch. They were at a small café across the road from the ocean, sitting in a fenced-in dining area. It was a few days after her sparring session with Viperion, and she had kept pushing him until he was too exhausted to even lift his lyre – but she couldn’t let up. After all, she might not be there the next time he was attacked. When she had returned to the boat, Luka had been rather subdued on their trip back to Honfleur, leaving her with plenty of time to mull over Viperion’s words while they had talked on the roof.

She was still thinking about them now, days later. Bengalia was his sister. Kagami didn’t know very many people – she couldn’t possibly know every single Parisian in Honfleur or Le Havre at same time that they were there. But she did know a brother/sister pair who happened to be visiting the port cities, and whose travel had corresponded eerily closely with Viperion’s and Bengalia’s – and with her own, for that matter. She tried to picture Juleka in Bengalia’s suit. What would she look like with the magenta streaks in her hair? What if during their next photo session, instead of a runway strut, Juleka dropped into the fighting crouch that Kagami herself – as Ryoku – had taught to Bengalia during one of their first training sessions?

Somehow she couldn’t quite picture the shy, quiet Juleka she’d first met as the snarky, scrappy Bengalia. And yet, she could see a little of Bengalia’s confidence in Juleka – at least on this trip when it was just the two of them by themselves or with Rose and Luka. With those she loved and around whom she felt comfortable, she definitely had Bengalia’s sass.

Juleka certainly _could_ be Bengalia, but that wasn’t unassailable proof.

Kagami took another bite of her burger, deep in thought. Realizing that Adrien was Cat Noir had been such a simple thing. They had been sparring at the Champ de Mars one night when Cat Noir had flicked his wrist, slipping his staff under her guard and pulling her sword out of her hand in a familiar way. A little _too_ familiar, since Adrien had used that exact move to disarm her in practice a week earlier. That was when she had reexamined everything she knew about Adrien and about Marinette (though she hadn’t really known Marinette at the time). Their sudden break-up happening the same day as Ladybug and Cat Noir’s major falling-out had simply been the final straw. There had been no other way around it: Adrien and Marinette had to be Cat Noir and Ladybug.

Luka and Juleka, however? She was no fool: everything about this trip was a little too convenient, and there had been little things that she had noticed from the others to make her wonder. But all the same: she couldn’t risk her _own_ identity without proof.

“Hey, anyone home?” Juleka asked, waving a hand in front of Kagami’s face.

Kagami blinked once and met the other girl’s eyes. “Huh? Oh, sorry.” She shrugged. “Just lost in thought.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately… ever since your day-te with Luka,” commented Juleka, wagging an eyebrow. “Thinking about the next time you’ll get to see him?”

Kagami felt her ears grow warm. “Considering that we’ll be heading home then,” she replied hastily, “we should probably get back to our pictures to make sure we get through all of the outfits.”

“So where do you think we should go for our next round of photos?” Juleka asked, dropping that subject and taking a sip of her water. “We still have a couple outfits from the summer line that might go well with the architecture of that church we walked past yesterday.”

Kagami nodded, her eyes drawn to the sparkly Panjas bracelet Juleka never took off. “We can do–”

Before Kagami could finish the statement, Juleka’s eyes shot wide open, staring at something over Kagami’s shoulder. Kagami had just started turning to look when a sedan went sailing down the street in midair, hit the pavement on its nose, and cartwheeled once before slamming into the ground, rocking back and forth on its roof. An enraged roar rang out from the direction from which the car had been thrown.

“Dammit!” Juleka shouted, diving across the table, grabbing Kagami’s shoulder, and pulling her to the ground with her.

Kagami hit the ground next to Juleka but rolled through the fall to bring her legs back under her. She crouched on one knee beside the overturned table, eyes scanning the street in the direction of the disturbance. She saw a monster of a man dressed all in gray and holding a golden-handled cutlass in one hand. A set of diver’s goggles covered his eyes, and his grey hair was pulled up into a sharply-pointed Mohawk. He stood next to an armored truck parked along the street in front of the jewelry store next to their café.

“Frenzy!” the man shouted – from the (admittedly poor) description she’d gotten, this was _definitely_ the Il Pirata who’d attacked Viperion. He grabbed the edge of the armored truck’s door with both hands, opened his mouth to show his rows of pointed teeth, and ripped a chunk of metal clean off of the truck, spitting it out callously before taking another bite.

“What the hell!” Kagami muttered as Il Pirata spit a chunk of the truck’s rear door in the direction of a family of tourists unfortunate enough to have been walking past at that moment. The metal missed the family but smashed through the fence she and Juleka were hiding behind. If he kept going, someone was going to get hurt. Without any other weapons close to hand, Kagami twisted a bar the length of her arm off the mangled fence and tested it in her grip. The movement drew Il Pirata’s attention, and he casually pushed the armored truck over onto its side, its wheels still spinning uselessly.

“These ports are infested with you wannabe heroes!” Il Pirata shouted in English, bounding over to the café, his eyes fixed on Kagami. He grabbed a teenage boy, picked him up, and tossed him over the fence on top of an abandoned table. “What are you going to do with that, _hero_? Try it! I dare you!”

“Get out of here!” Kagami shouted behind her to Juleka. She sprang to her feet and placed herself between Juleka and Il Pirata, holding the bar tightly with her accustomed fencing grip. There was no way she could transform right now, in the middle of a crowded street and right in front of an enemy. Wrought iron could never stand up to the sharp edge of a bladed miraculous weapon – she had proven that herself on several occasions – but it was far better than facing an enemy miraculous user unarmed. Il Pirata brought his cutlass down in a slash, and Kagami easily bobbed under the blade, sidestepped, and brought her bar up, pushing his cutlass around and unbalancing him. Behind her, Juleka let out a surprised gasp, and out of the corner of her eye Kagami caught a glimpse of dark hair disappearing around the side of the café.

Il Pirata twisted around, ignoring Kagami’s punch to his side, and made another slashing attack at her neck. Kagami parried the blow with her bar, twisting her wrist the moment they connected so the cutlass glanced off a curve in the bar and couldn’t bite into the metal. Il Pirata punched her with his off hand, but Kagami spun around the punch and rapped him across the back with her bar.

“Get back here, you pest!” he roared, twisting around and trying to grab the bar out of Kagami’s hand.

“Sounds like someone needs to teach you some manners, buddy!” Kagami taunted, slapping his wrist with the bar and jumping backward through the hole he had made in the mangled fence to avoid his follow-up slash.

Il Pirata stomped his foot in frustration, smacked his chest, and advanced on Kagami, pursuing her into the middle of the street, where the traffic had come to a standstill. Kagami backed away from him, bobbing away from his wild sweeping slashes. She ducked under a backhanded swipe and jabbed his shoulder with the tip of her bar – a move that had surprised Adrien in their last sparring match. Il Pirata, however, avoided the jab and caught her in the middle of the chest with his fist. She stumbled backwards into the front of a parked car, cradling the ribs that had creaked with the blow, but recovered quickly. She slid across the car hood on her back, landed on both feet and dropped into her normal fighting stance, her bar held horizontally next to her head and her off-hand extended and pointing at Il Pirata.

Il Pirata put his foot on the front side of the car to push it into her, and Kagami tensed to dive out of the way.

At that moment, Il Pirata grunted and stumbled to the side, clutching his upper chest where a trio of shallow slashes had just appeared. He looked around wildly for his attacker, just as the car’s hood dented in and Bengalia blinked back into visibility, standing in the center of the dent, between him and Kagami. “Leave my friends alone!” she screamed, baring her claws and holding her arms spread out in the stance Ryoku had taught her.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here!?!” he demanded, glaring up at Bengalia.

“Stopping you!” she retorted. And with that she sprang off the car on top of him, batting away his fumbling slash with one hand and digging the fingers of her other hand into his face.

Ryoku had _definitely_ not taught her _that_ move!

Taking advantage of Bengalia’s distraction, Kagami planted her hand on the car and swung around it, swinging her rod at Il Pirata’s side. He grunted and flinched away from her strike. As Kagami moved to follow up, Il Pirata grabbed Bengalia’s throat with one hand, but she broke his hold and kneed him in the chest before springing away from him in a flip. Without giving him a chance to recover, Kagami slid in and swung her bar at his head. Il Pirata blocked with his cutlass and sliced through the bar cleanly.

Kagami jumped backward to avoid his sweeping counterstrike and stumbled centimeters from the edge of the wharf, waving one arm to keep her balance. Il Pirata advanced on her, a manic glint in his eye, and pressed her back until her heels were hanging off the edge over the water. Bengalia recovered and lunged at his midsection, and he turned his cutlass on her. Bengalia caught the cutlass on her claws and deflected it to the side, but Il Pirata evaded her follow-up punch and pushed her aside. Kagami swung what was left of her bar at him, but he grabbed the bar and pulled it from her grip with one hand before slapping her with a stinging backhand across the face with the other hand. Then he kicked her hard in the chest.

All the wind was knocked from Kagami’s lungs as she flew backward off the wharf and into the water. She heard Bengalia cry out and had a moment to suck in a quick breath before the back of her head hit the water.

Her cheek stung on contact with the saltwater. But the ocean floor dropped off enough in this spot that she didn’t hit her head on the bottom, at least. A lithe red form appeared out of her pocket, swam in front of her face, and met her eye with his calm gaze. She nodded and forced herself to match Longg’s calm and not waste her meager oxygen. “Longg, Bring the storm,” she whispered in a torrent of bubbles. The magic of her transformation hadn’t even disappeared yet before Ryoku drew her sword and, with the last of her air, screamed, “Water Dragon!”

The water around her frothed and whirled as Ryoku spun her sword above her head. The water swirled in a vortex around her, pushing away from her mouth to form a small pocket of air, and she took a gasping breath into her burning lungs. Storms building in her eyes, Ryoku swung her sword downward and was buoyed to the surface by the churning waves on which she rode, stabbing her sword up to pierce the water’s surface. She broke the ocean’s surface in the center of the maelstrom, sword held aloft in both hands and a cry of anger on her lips. Il Pirata and Bengalia wore matching expressions of shock at her sudden appearance, though Bengalia recovered an instant before Il Pirata and leapt back away from him. The maelstrom bore Ryoku up to the edge of the wharf and placed her slightly above the level of the boardwalk. Il Pirata swung his cutlass at Ryoku, who parried the blow effortlessly and swung her sword around, sending a tidal wave washing over the wharf and crashing into his lower body. Again and again Ryoku swung her sword and battered his legs and feet with the waves, lifting him from the ground and pulling him off the boardwalk and out into the maelstrom seething around her. He tumbled around her once head-over-heels before, with a scream, Ryoku flung Il Pirata from the maelstrom and out to sea.

“Wind Dragon!” she called, making a slashing motion with her sword. A sudden gust of wind caught Il Pirata from the side and slammed him face-first into a container ship just turning into the port.

Ryoku let out a breath and stepped from the maelstrom onto the boardwalk. The water around her calmed instantly. She stumbled, and Bengalia was there in a flash, taking the sword out of Ryoku’s limp grip, pulling Ryoku’s arm over her shoulder, wrapping an arm around Ryoku’s waist, and holding Ryoku upright. Ryoku halfheartedly held up her fist, and Bengalia bumped it with her own.

“I thought you said to stay on the ground to maintain control,” Bengalia commented, shaking her head in amazement.

“Water works, too, if you can control it.”

“That… that was definitely something else!” Bengalia observed appreciatively.

Ryoku laughed weakly. “That was nothing,” she replied. “There was one time I turned into a Storm for your brother!”

Bengalia laughed too, but the laugh turned to a frown as she touched Ryoku’s stinging cheek. “That looks like it hurts,” she said carefully.

Ryoku gave her an evaluating look. Even with her suspicions, she still couldn’t give herself away without being certain. She shrugged. “It’s nothing.”


	15. Chapter 15

“This has gone on long enough.”

Luka nodded slowly, though Ryoku couldn’t see him over the phone. He was leaning against the wall in the pilothouse, a cup of sailor’s coffee in his other hand. “Bengalia told me what happened yesterday,” he replied. “I’m glad you’re both okay.” Ryoku had texted him after the incident, but only said she was unhurt and needed time to think before calling him to discuss what to do about it. He’d agreed, but only so he would have time to figure out a way to convince her of what he already knew they needed to do.

“Likewise,” she answered curtly. Even over the phone he could hear the dissonance in her song.

He let out a breath. How would she react to this? “We have to change our target. We can’t keep going with the original mission. We need to stop him before we return to Paris in a couple days,” he told her.

“I agree.”

“Really?” He started in surprise. “I… admit I was expecting a little more resistance from you. After all, _you_ ’re the one who’s always so focused on the mission.”

“We finished collecting all the intel Pegasus needs two nights ago,” Ryoku argued. “All they have us doing now is waiting for Pegasus to go through it on the off-chance that he identifies a Lynchpin shipment before we leave. This is more important. Il Pirata threatened me and he threatened my friend. He could have killed someone! If we hadn’t been right there, he _would_ have killed someone! He needs to be stopped, and we’re the ones to do it – you and I both know the local police won’t be able to handle an out-of-control miraculous user. We’re here, and we know him now. It’s got to be us.”

“Glad we’re on the same page on that,” he observed, smiling in relief. “I have a hunch I’ve been running with,” he went on. “Going over all the shipping logs we’ve collected. I looked at the shipments the day he attacked me and then yesterday, and I found a bunch of shipments from Egypt coming into port on those days. From what Bengalia said, the mystery shipment we were watching unloaded was also from Egypt. And there’s another shipment scheduled for tonight at Le Havre. If the pattern’s right, I think he might strike that.”

“That’s as good a plan as any,” she agreed. “I’ll see you tonight.” The call disconnected.

Luka sent a quick message to Miss Pinky about the change of plans, and looked up when he heard Rose’s phone go off. She was standing right outside the pilothouse, a look of slight confusion on her face. Luka opened the door and told her, “We’re making a quick trip to Honfleur this morning. Jules messaged me.”

Rose nodded slowly in agreement. “It sounds like yesterday’s attack really rattled her. Good thing Bengalia and Ryoku were right there to stop that monster!”

Luka smirked as she went to untie the mooring lines. _You have no idea just_ how _“right there” Bengalia was!_ “One thing’s for sure,” he called when she was back on board and they were putting out from the dock, “I’m glad she and Kagami decided to check out early and stay on the boat with us for our last couple nights here. We’re probably safer together than on opposite sides of the bay with a lunatic like that running wild.”

Kagami and Juleka were already waiting for them at the pier when they arrived, a smaller-than-before pile of luggage stacked behind them. Rose threw the mooring lines down to them, and they tied the boat up without any extra chatter – the discordance in their songs clear even from Luka’s place inside the pilothouse. Descending the gangplank to help with the luggage, Luka furrowed his brow on noticing that Kagami was wearing her Viperion shirt again – perhaps after yesterday… he shrugged. Why sell Heroes of Paris shirts if not to give people a feeling of safety or confidence?

Luka threw an arm around Juleka in a hug the moment he reached her. “I’m glad you’re safe, sis,” he whispered.

She squeezed him back before grabbing Kagami’s arm and pulling her into the hug. “I wouldn’t be, if not for Kagami,” she replied, smiling wanly.

Luka wrapped his other arm around Kagami and pulled her a little closer as Rose slid in between Luka and Juleka. He sighed and released some of the tension he had been holding onto since Juleka’s and Ryoku’s texts the previous day. His friends were safe, and his team would try to end the threat that night. Looking around the circle, he could see similar expressions on the others’ faces. As if by magic, some of the disharmony he had been hearing eased.

They worked quickly to stow all the luggage in Kagami and Rose’s room before casting off and returning to Le Havre. On the way back, Rose and Juleka sat near the bow of the boat, heads together and whispering intently. Kagami leaned against the railing, staring down into the water. Luka frowned. Everything felt off from the last time their group had been together.

Once they had tied up back at their rented dock, Luka asked the others, “What’s the plan for today?”

Juleka shrugged noncommittally. “We took some photos with this outfit while waiting for you, but there’s still one left.”

“I think it would go well with that private beach you posted about,” Kagami commented, looking at Rose.

Luka nodded. That night’s shipment would be at the dock next to there, and this would give Juleka a chance to see it in daylight first. He glanced over at Rose, who looked conflicted. He could understand her concern: he didn’t like the idea of Kagami and Juleka going off by themselves with Il Pirata around, either, and _he_ knew that Juleka had a miraculous! “Why don’t we all go?” he suggested.

Rose nodded in relief as Juleka went to change and Kagami collected their equipment. Once they were ready, Luka slung his guitar over his back and picked up the bag with the portable lights. He rolled his eyes when Juleka and Rose raced on ahead along the boardwalk, leaving him to walk next to Kagami. At least she didn’t seem to mind their companions’ less-than-subtle attempts to leave the two of them alone.

Something about Kagami’s song still didn’t quite sound the same… but after the day she’d had yesterday, he wasn’t surprised. “Juleka told me all about what happened,” he finally began. “It was brave of you to fight that monster off the way you did, with nothing but a piece of iron. Thank you for protecting her.” _Even if Juleka can protect herself_ , he didn’t add.

Kagami blushed. “I wasn’t about to let him hurt anyone, especially one of my friends,” she replied, her eyebrows set in determination.

He touched her cheek delicately where the bruise was still slightly visible where Il Pirata had slapped her, though she had mostly covered it up with makeup. “It looks like he hurt _you_ , though.”

She leaned ever so slightly into his hand while he inspected her bruise. “It’s really nothing,” she assured him. “I’ve gotten worse from a fencing match.”

“All the same, I would hate to see you get hurt again.”

Kagami nodded and looked away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. Pulling out her phone, she sent a quick message. “The property manager gave us permission to take photos on the beach,” she said a couple minutes later, not looking up from her phone.

While Kagami and Juleka set up the lights for their photos, Luka walked around the outside of the beach and found himself staring out at the ocean, where a container ship was turning to approach the unloading dock. Idly he wondered if whatever Il Pirata was after was actually worth all of the destruction he was causing and people he was hurting to get it. He strummed a melancholy chord on his guitar.

“Another song?” Rose asked, stirring him out of his thoughts.

“Just thinking,” he replied evasively. “You’re not going to watch them work?”

She shook her head. “I just thought I’d stay out here and give them space.”

Luka nodded and returned to watching the docks. They were alive with activity as men and machines worked to unload the containers, some of which went straight onto trucks while others were stacked inside and around the warehouses. Which container was Il Pirata looking for? Was it even here? Would Il Pirata even show up? That night they would have to be careful _and_ lucky if they were going to stop this threat once and for all.

Dinner that evening was a subdued affair. Kagami forced food into her mouth mechanically, though without enthusiasm. Her song, which had been so joyful for the whole trip up until that day, had taken on a somber and confused lilt since the previous day’s attack – all the more so as the day had progressed. Luka couldn’t blame her: he had been in much the same mood after his first encounter with Il Pirata, and he’d had a miraculous – and even still had not handled himself half as well as she had! Juleka was looking around the table anxiously, eyeing Kagami and Rose with some concern. A part of Luka empathized with her: how would that night’s operation affect their companions? It would be terrible if Il Pirata hurt Rose and Kagami because of them. Rose for her part was merely pushing her food around and staring at the plate – a definite change from her normal bubbly excitement. Luka frowned. The tension that had been in the background all day was suddenly so thick he could cut it with a knife. Everyone’s songs were disjointed and jumbled together and discordant. He pushed back slightly from the table, picked up his guitar, and started playing a somber song. The others glanced up, but without saying anything.

After dinner, Kagami went up on deck for fresh air and Rose went into her room while Luka and Juleka washed the dishes. After the dishes were put away, Luka raised an eyebrow at Juleka, who shrugged, and they went up on the deck. Kagami was nowhere to be seen when they left the boat, and they found an alley down the street in which to transform before racing to the meeting spot. The others were already waiting for them on the same warehouse roof Viperion and Miss Pinky had met on for their first mission in Le Havre. Ryoku held her sword in a relaxed grip at her side, her eyes moving constantly, scanning the docks, the bay, and even the roofs around them.

Viperion nodded in greeting. “It’s good to see you in one piece after yesterday,” he commented to Ryoku, throwing an arm around her shoulders in a quick hug that she returned hesitantly. He touched the bruise that her mask didn’t quite cover up before he released her and faced his three teammates. “Whatever happens, if Il Pirata shows up, we can’t let him escape. We _need_ to end this tonight!”

Bengalia and Miss Pinky both nodded curtly, jumped off the roof, and ran to the perimeter fence to take their positions. Ryoku, however, stopped and looked at him with some concern in her eyes. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay up here by yourself?” she asked.

He nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. “I feel a lot better after our sparring session the other night!”

She arched an eyebrow at him dubiously. “You didn’t lose any _fingers_ , but that doesn’t exactly make you an expert, Slithers.” She shrugged and turned to leave. “Just keep an eye out.”

He smiled. “You do the same.”

“Please, this guy isn’t going to be sneaking up on me _again_!”

Viperion lay down on top of the warehouse roof to watch the others, his hand resting over his miraculous and his lyre next to him with a camera active to show him anyone sneaking up behind him. _Fool me once, shame on me…_ Below him, he could just make out Miss Pinky standing under one of the trees she had planted on their first night in Le Havre. Bengalia had probably reached her position among the shipping containers and was recharging. And Ryoku was plainly visible pacing the quay just outside the perimeter fence to act as bait. The tension that had been building all day had only gotten thicker since they had arrived to set up their ambush. Viperion wanted badly to play his lyre and relax, but he couldn’t take his attention off his teammates, even for a minute. His eyes scanned the oceanfront constantly, alert for any sign of gray.

Suddenly, Ryoku let out a yelp of surprise, moments before a too-familiar voice shouted, “This is for yesterday!” The next thing Viperion knew, Ryoku was in midair, soaring out over the water. And Il Pirata was rising from the water where she had stood moments before.

Il Pirata crossed the quay in two steps, slashed through the perimeter fence with his cutlass, widened the hole with his shoulders, and stalked inside. He held the cutlass menacingly in front of himself and made a beeline directly for the stacks of shipping containers.

“Miss Pinky, keep him busy!” Viperion ordered, sliding off the roof as quietly as he could and racing for the water. “Ryoku?”

“I’m fine,” she responded instantly. “Throw me the line; I don’t want to blow one of my powers if I don’t have to.”

By that time Viperion was standing on the quay, one eye firmly fixed on Ryoku’s bobbing head. Behind him he could hear the sound of Miss Pinky dueling Il Pirata, rake against cutlass. A mooring line was coiled next to a cleat near Viperion’s feet. He untied it from the cleat and heaved it into the water, aiming it to fall over Ryoku’s shoulder. Ryoku caught the rope, pulled it around herself, tied a knot with one hand, and waved an arm at him. Hand over hand, Viperion reeled her swiftly back to shore and pulled her out of the water to stand next to him on the quay. Only once she was safely on shore, shaking her head to clear the water from her eyes and bangs, did Viperion take a closer look at the knot she had used.

A bowline.

Suddenly everything clicked. Ryoku’s song, which had been opening up more throughout the trip, rang out clearly in his mind. Kagami disappearing on a walk in Le Havre while Ryoku patrolled with Viperion. Rose asking to go to Honfleur when Miss Pinky was supposed to plant trees there for a night. Rose suggesting that they walk around the spots Miss Pinky photographed. The flowers. The convenience of all their travel lining up so perfectly. There was really only one explanation.

Meanwhile, Ryoku was looking at him with a concerned expression on her face.

Carefully, keeping his tone noncommittal – he knew how much she guarded her secret identity – he commented, “That’s a clever knot you tied. You must have had a really good teacher.”


	16. Chapter 16

“That’s a clever knot you tied. You must have had a really good teacher.”

Despite herself, Ryoku gasped. Why had Viperion asked her the question that exact way? Had she given herself away with the bowline? And then she examined Viperion’s face, nervously waiting for her to respond. Everything she had been thinking since their last meeting clicked into place and her fear dissolved. There was only one reason for him to ask that question – if he knew she had just learned to tie a bowline the week before. And there was only one reason for him to know that. She felt her cheeks flush. “You definitely _are_ a good teacher,” she told him.

Viperion’s eyes widened slightly. “You… you know?”

Ryoku nodded and smiled shyly. “I think you do, too.”

Viperion put a hand on her cheek over where she’d been slapped the previous day, and she raised her own hand to cover his, leaning into his touch and looking into his warm eyes. Everything else vanished from her mind. She was about to say something more when–

“If the two of you are done _flirting_ over there,” Miss Pinky grunted over their communicators, “I wouldn’t mind a hand with this _stupid Shark Monster_!”

Ryoku’s eyes darted into the loading yard, where Miss Pinky was holding her rake up at an angle, blocking repeated slashes from Il Pirata. As she watched, Il Pirata slashed at her face again, and she spun to one side to dodge the strike. Il Pirata stumbled off-balance. At the same moment Miss Pinky twisted her wrist and rolled her rake head into his face, scraping his cheek and knocking him to the side. As she moved to capitalize on his mistake, however, he stepped forward and thrust his elbow backward into Miss Pinky’s chest. She grunted and fell back, springing away in a cartwheel to avoid his follow-up strike. Ryoku arched an eyebrow at Viperion, who nodded and set his jaw.

“Second Chance!”

Side-by-side, Ryoku and Viperion raced through the hole Il Pirata had cut through the dock fence. Miss Pinky was falling back step by step now as Il Pirata advanced on her, hacking away steadily at her defense.

“You are weak!” he shouted in English. “There is no way for you to stop me!”

Miss Pinky smirked and blocked another blow. “Clearly you have not been following the news!” she taunted, also in English, pushing his cutlass aside with her rake head and simultaneously swinging the shaft at his shoulder. “ _We_ are the Heroes of Paris, dumbass: stopping bad guys with miraculous is what we do! We take down guys like you for _fun_!”

Ryoku caught Miss Pinky’s eye and nodded. Miss Pinky ducked beneath Il Pirata’s next swing, planted the head of her rake on the ground in front of her, and vaulted feet-first into Il Pirata’s chest as he over-balanced. At the same moment Ryoku dropped to the ground behind him, and he tumbled over her back. She pushed herself up as his feet left the ground, and he landed hard on his shoulders but rolled his feet over his head in a backward somersault and surged to his feet. Ryoku drew her sword and lunged into the attack. Il Pirata parried Ryoku’s first thrust and evaded the second, but could not avoid her follow-up kick to his gut.

“You want to hurt my friends?” she shouted fiercely, hacking at his chest. He held his cutlass up to parry her repeated attacks. “You want to hurt innocent people?” She made a wild swing at his head. “How do you like it when they fight _back_!?!”

Il Pirata ducked under her swing. Ryoku was left off-balance. His eyes lit up with malice and he swung his cutlass at her neck. She couldn’t block the strike, couldn’t dodge–

A lyre flew out of nowhere and deflected Il Pirata’s arm. His swing went wild, missing Ryoku’s head by centimeters.

Ryoku spun under Il Pirata’s reach and jabbed him in the gut with her elbow, at the same moment that Bengalia appeared out of thin air right behind him and kicked him hard in the back of his knee. Il Pirata dropped to his knees between them, bringing his face down on a level with Ryoku’s shoulders. Bengalia knelt on the backs of his calves, pinning him down. His eyes were filled with hatred and he glared at Ryoku in front of him. He thrust his cutlass at her, but she casually batted it to the side with her sword. Viperion was there in an instant and caught the cutlass blade between two strings of his lyre. He jerked the lyre to one side, wrenching the cutlass out of Il Pirata’s grip and swinging it back around, hitting Il Pirata in the face with the hilt of his own weapon.

Ryoku stepped to the side as Miss Pinky jumped over Bengalia and tackled Il Pirata from behind, slamming him into the ground and holding her rake across his neck to press his face into the dirt. Bengalia retracted her middle claw and stabbed the other two into the ground on either side of one of his legs and forced his other leg out straight with her foot, pinning him down. She extended her middle claw just slightly, until it pricked the skin on the back of his calf through his miraculous suit. Ryoku grabbed one side of the rake and put her knee over the rake handle and Il Pirata’s arm, pinning him to the ground.

“Better do this quick!” Ryoku shouted to Viperion. “I don’t know how long we can hold him!”

Viperion dropped to one knee in front of Il Pirata’s head and grabbed the gold hoop in his ear. “Keep still,” he told him firmly. Il Pirata shook his head to the side and spat at Viperion. Viperion shrugged. “Your loss.” And he tugged the earring straight off of his ear.

Il Pirata howled in pain even as his gray wetsuit disappeared in a flash of green light, leaving behind a man slightly smaller than Il Pirata who was wearing nondescript clothing. His grey Mohawk turned into a messy black mop. He gnashed his teeth at them, and Ryoku was surprised to see that the sharpened teeth of Il Pirata had returned to normal.

“I told you not to move,” Viperion muttered, slipping the earring into a pouch at his waist. “Miss Pinky?”

Miss Pinky stood up and removed her rake from across the former Il Pirata’s neck. He immediately put a hand up to cup his bleeding ear. Ryoku knelt by his head and placed the flat of her sword against the back of his neck, and he instantly stilled. “Try anything, and I give _you_ a close shave,” Ryoku growled in his ear.

“Cornucopia,” Miss Pinky muttered, running her rake through the dirt next to them and forming nine short furrows.

A half-dozen plants sprouted at once, and Viperion plucked a small handful, rolled them together in his hands, and formed it into a poultice. He pulled the man’s hand away from his ear, placed the poultice over it, and then grabbed a bit of moss and placed that over everything. “Next time someone tells you not to move when you are pinned down, you should probably listen!” Viperion told him. He chuckled. “Of course, next time you find a miraculous, you should probably not use it to hurt people.”

“So where did you find it?” Ryoku asked the man, rolling him over to his back so he could sit up. She rose to her feet to stand over him, the tip of her sword centimeters from his nose.

He glared up at her down the length of the sword, hate and pain mixed in his expression. “Like I told your buddy, I was free-diving in the Caribbean when I happened to find it on the wreck of an old pirate ship. The moment my hand touched it, the gray thing popped out and introduced itself,” he spat.

“Where is the wreck?” Viperion demanded, bringing up a map on his lyre. When the man refused to look, Viperion added, “You are not leaving until we get an answer. That poultice will slow the bleeding, but you probably want to go to a hospital at some point. And if you do not want to go right now, I am certain Bengalia would be more than happy to give you a _better_ reason to go…” Bengalia extended her middle claw in front of the man’s face to emphasize the point.

“Fine.” The man stabbed a spot on the map. “Are you happy now?”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Viperion told him sardonically, sending the location to Pegasus.

Ryoku looked up to find a pair of dock security officers standing about ten meters away and staring at them in shock. _Took them long enough…_ With a sigh she walked over to meet them. “We are some of the Heroes of Paris. I assume you’ve heard of us?” she told them, switching back to French. When they nodded, she continued. “This is the man who terrorized the Honfleur waterfront yesterday afternoon,” she explained, gesturing at the man sitting in the middle of the group of Heroes. “He was using a miraculous which we just confiscated.”

“I heard something about that,” one of the guards told her, nodding, “though there weren’t any good images of him or what happened. What are you going to do with him?”

“At the moment?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Nothing. We took away his miraculous, so he is no longer a threat – or at least not one that you need _us_ to deal with. We have everything we need from him for now, though one of the other Heroes may come up here to ask some more questions in a few days. Can we leave him in your custody until the police arrive?”

One of the guards nodded and withdrew a set of handcuffs. Ryoku led the security officers over and watched them cuff the prisoner, who continued to hold the makeshift bandage over his bleeding ear. The guards escorted him to the guardhouse, while one made a phone call. Ryoku allowed herself a small smile. They had done it: they had stopped him. And yet, that was only the start of it. She looked over her three companions and raised an eyebrow at Viperion.

Viperion nodded his agreement. “I think we’re done here,” he announced. “I think it’s time for us to leave.”

Bengalia looked down at her miraculous. “I need to go,” she admitted with a frown, not making any move to leave. “I only have a minute left.”

Ryoku chuckled and arched an eyebrow. After everything that had happened… “Maybe we could all just walk back to the boat together,” she suggested, smiling broadly.

The other three looked at each other and nodded ruefully. “With the benefit of hindsight,” Miss Pinky observed, giggling, “I suppose it’s pretty obvious!”


	17. Chapter 17

Luka put aside his empty plate, wiped his hands, and picked up his guitar. He relaxed into the bench, his fingers moving of their own accord along the strings as he warmed up. All four of them were sitting quietly on the deck, eating some pastries they had bought from one of the nearby shops. They had considered going for a final walk around Le Havre on the last day of their trip, but not with much enthusiasm. After the excitement of the previous night, no one really seemed interested in leaving the boat. Luka examined the others. Although everyone appeared overwhelmed by the stress of their fight and the revelations that had followed, all the previous day’s tension had entirely evaporated.

For as anxious and discordant as the songs he’d heard in their hearts the day before had sounded, all three of his companions’ heart songs had shifted into a far more joyful mode this morning. Rose and Juleka were sitting together on the opposite bench, giggling and whispering conspiratorially, their songs blending together as seamlessly as always – perhaps more now that the secret that they were both superheroes was out in the open. Kagami sat on the other end of the bench from him, an unreadable expression on her face. However, despite the discordant notes he heard occasionally, her song, so tense and muffled and hauntingly familiar for the last two weeks, rang out so clearly to him this morning – more than it ever had before.

The blend of the three songs was one of the best sounds Luka had ever heard. He shifted his fingering slightly in an effort to capture it.

“I really should have realized who you were the first day we were in Le Havre,” Rose observed, glancing over at Luka and giggling. “You were playing exactly the same song on your lyre after I planted my trees that you had played at lunch.”

Luka laughed in embarrassment. “I suppose I do need to be careful which songs I play and when,” he admitted.

“If I had believed thisss to be dangerousss, I would have warned you,” Sass assured him. He and the other three Kwamis were lounging together atop Luka’s guitar case, watching their holders with some interest.

Luka narrowed his eyes. “That time I heard you and Roaar talking in the bedroom,” he began, “was that all four of you in there?”

Roaar let out a roar of laughter. “I guess you’re not as clueless as you look!”

“The Guardians believed it prudent for us to be aware of the situation in case something went awry,” Longg explained, putting a hand on Roaar’s shoulder to quiet her, though she still smirked at Luka mischievously.

“So you knew all along and you didn’t say anything?” Kagami asked, giving her Kwami a surprised look.

Daizzi giggled shrilly. “Tikki told us it was our decision if we felt the need to reveal this information to you, but advised that we leave it up to you to reveal or figure out or hide on your own,” she replied. “The first day we were all on the boat together, we talked it over and decided not to interfere unless we absolutely had to. There was never a need to tell you, so we decided to just sit back and watch.”

“You’re leaving out the best part,” Roaar added, choking back a laugh. “Plagg said in his experience this watching you fumble around each other to keep your identities secret is the best part of having holders hanging out so close to each other!”

Juleka shook her head. “I never thought I’d say this after everything _else_ , but… somehow I feel _worse_ for Adrien now…” she muttered.

Luka grinned and raised an eyebrow at her. “I think he got his payback on _us_ this trip!” He finger-styled an excited flourish on his guitar, plucked through a basic chord progression, and settled into something more soothing. The bench shifted under him as Kagami slid closer to listen. “I don’t think I feel _too_ bad for him after all of this.”

“So what did he and Marinette say when you told them about the Shark Miraculous?” Kagami asked curiously.

“Not much,” answered Luka. “They want to see it when we get back, of course. Julia sent the coordinates we got for that wreck back to her temple, and one of her teammates is going to check it out.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine there’s much chance of finding _another_ miraculous there, but you never know.”

“It’s crazy to think that a miraculous was just… sitting there at the bottom of the ocean all this time,” Juleka commented.

Luka nodded and shifted back to the song that had been on his mind for the entire trip. Though his eyes were on the guitar, he could feel another set of eyes staring at him from the other end of the bench.

Rose seemed to notice the same thing. She giggled and stood up, stretching her arms as she did so. “Jules, do you want to see some more of my pictures from the trip?” she asked innocently, nodding her head toward the stairs.

“Of course!” Juleka grabbed Rose’s hand and the two girls ran down the stairs. Before they left, however, Luka caught Juleka smirking at him and wagging her eyebrows. He rolled his eyes. At a signal from Sass, the four Kwamis disappeared below deck as well, and Luka was left alone on the deck with Kagami. Even the foot traffic from people walking along the waterfront faded out.

He played softly for a couple minutes, Kagami listening quietly. Eventually, however, she giggled and said, “You’re lucky I don’t understand music better.”

“Oh?”

“Luka and Viperion have both been playing what you called my ‘heart song’ right in front of me for months,” she explained shyly. “How did I never put it together?”

Luka laughed gently. “In your defense, I’ve been hearing your heart song for months from both Ryoku and Kagami, and I thought I was starting to lose my mind because the melodies were so similar and even starting to blend together so they were nearly indistinguishable, and I couldn’t figure out why. I thought I might be starting to project Ryoku onto you since I was hearing snatches of Ryoku’s song in your heart – at the gala especially. On this trip I even heard and wrote down a second verse for Ryoku’s song… only to hear it coming from Kagami the next time I saw you.”

Kagami leaned in a little and raised an eyebrow in a question.

“Your song is the same,” he explained. “It’s _always_ been the same. It’s just that something has been muting it when you aren’t Ryoku. Or muting it _more_ when you aren’t Ryoku.” He frowned and struck a couple strings in a metered, staccato rhythm. He adjusted the chord to something diminished and tried again. “That’s always been there in the background, even for Ryoku,” he added, not looking up from the guitar, “but it’s been a lot more pronounced whenever you don’t have the mask.” He laughed and shifted to what he’d been playing before. “This whole trip that’s been gone, so there’s been nothing to hide the sweet melody that I’ve always heard from your heart.” He looked up and smiled. “In retrospect it’s pretty obvious what that discordance is: it’s your mother’s influence forcing you into the box of what she expects from you, forcing you to hide who you really are.”

Kagami flushed. “It’s just so hard to get away from her expectations, the pressure she always piles on top of me,” she admitted. Her face brightened. “I think this trip is the first time in my life that I haven’t actually felt her pressure on me in any way. This has been absolutely amazing!”

“I’m glad your song is so clear now,” he agreed, playing a couple more chords. “I wish it could be so clear all the time, and not just when your mother is half a country away.”

Kagami raised an eyebrow at him. “You realize that coming from anyone else it would be really weird to find out how much attention you’ve been paying to my heart, right?”

Luka laughed easily. “You have told me that before – both of me!” He shrugged. “I’ve just always heard people’s hearts well,” he replied, feeling his cheeks redden. “It’s not really something I can turn off.”

“So how many girls’ ‘heart songs’ have you turned into _actual_ songs and played in concerts?”

Luka stopped playing and thought for a minute. “None,” he admitted. “I did start writing a song when I was hearing Marinette’s song better a couple years ago, but I stopped last summer after hearing how well her heart song was beginning to harmonize with Adrien’s.” He looked her in the eye. “So I guess that would make you the first.”

Kagami slid down the bench to sit right next to him. “And what does it mean that you would accord Ryoku that honor?” she asked softly, looking up into his eyes.

“I think you know the answer to that question already,” he replied, equally softly.

She smiled up at him and pulled her feet up onto the bench, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes, a soft smile on her lips – an action that had become so customary between Ryoku and Viperion, even if not when coming from Kagami. Luka smiled gently and continued playing as she listened quietly.


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning Kagami woke up at the crack of dawn to find the bedroom she and Rose were sharing empty. She looked over at the dresser where Longg and Daizzi had been sleeping to find both Kwamis gone also. She frowned; the idea of Longg having somewhere other than the Mansion where he could move around in the open on a regular basis would take some getting used to. Quickly she pulled on her Viperion t-shirt – she now realized why she felt so comfortable wearing it, and why Juleka had found it so amusing – and went out to find breakfast. After pouring herself a cup of tea and grabbing a fresh muffin – she’d had no idea Rose baked before this trip – from the counter, she made her way up to the top deck. Juleka was in the pilothouse, waiting for Rose and Luka to finish untying the boat from the dock so they could get underway. Kagami giggled on hearing Luka utter a curse that would make a sailor blush.

“You know,” a gravelly voice commented from a spot near one of the rails, “I could take care of that line really easily…”

Kagami looked down to find a gray Kwami with a pronounced ridge on top of its head sitting on the gunwale and watching the proceedings while chewing on a sardine. Sass and Longg sat on either side of the Kwami, all three partially-hidden by the railing, shaking their heads. “Again, Carro, this is not Atlantis. We do not do things like that here…” Longg explained patiently, patting the other Kwami’s fin and spitting a fish bone into the water.

At that moment Luka finally got the line undone, and he and Rose raced up the gangplank. Juleka revved the engine, pulling them away from the wharf. The three Kwamis floated up to Kagami, and she put out a hand for them to sit on before she followed the other two into the pilothouse, where the Kwamis flew off to sit on the console in front of the window and watch the boat motor slowly up the river. Luka took the wheel from Juleka and maneuvered them around the traffic and into the lane leading up the Seine and back to Paris. Rose nudged Juleka and raised an eyebrow, and the two of them went back out on deck to watch the cities as they passed. Juleka gave Kagami an encouraging smile and pat on the arm as they left.

When they were alone, Kagami gave Luka a closer look and caught a flash of gold from his ear. She reached up and pushed aside his hair to reveal the Shark Miraculous. “That’s a good look on you,” she observed with a smile. “Very ‘punk.’”

He leaned slightly into her hand and chuckled. “Maybe,” he agreed. “I’m just glad it adjusted to a clip-on for me; I don’t know if I really want to keep the earring look permanently. I wouldn’t have activated it today except I thought Carro might want a chance to see the sights before we get back to Paris. From what she’s said, it hasn’t exactly been an easy journey for her since Atlantis fell,” he explained. “Her holder at the time was a merchant captain. They were away on a trading voyage around Africa when it happened, and when they returned home to find their entire civilization destroyed and even the island itself reclaimed by the sea, the crew mutinied and turned pirate. Her holder was killed, and she was claimed by the new captain. After that, for the last few thousand years it has been one person after another using her power to hurt people and terrorize the seven seas.”

“Poor thing,” Kagami noted sympathetically, giving the trio of Kwamis sitting in front of the window a closer look.

Carro turned to look at her and shrugged. “I got used to it,” she replied evasively. “Though I admit it _is_ nice to once again have my miraculous held by a ship’s captain who _won’t_ use me to bite a hole through his enemy’s keel. Or have me rip off a mutineer’s head…”

“Sorry this is only a temporary thing,” Luka apologized, giving the Kwami a sad smile. “Our Guardians aren’t sure yet what they will do with your miraculous when we get home.”

“I understand,” Carro replied, turning back to look out the window. Sass and Longg each wrapped an arm around her. “Thank you for letting me out to see the water now.”

Kagami leaned against the console next to Luka and looked down at the depth gauge. There was something she really needed to do before they returned to Paris, but… She frowned. “That is definitely not magenta,” she observed with a snort.

“‘Magenta’?”

“The first morning, after we left Rouen,” she explained. “I found you and Juleka talking in here, and I saw something magenta that I took for the depth gauge.” She looked at him appraisingly. “It must have been Roaar.”

He nodded and adjusted their course to avoid a small fishing boat. “Juleka was worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep you from figuring out her identity on this trip,” he explained. “Roaar and I were trying to convince her it would all work out okay.” He laughed ruefully. “I guess it happened anyways.”

“ _She_ actually wasn’t the one who laid it all out for me,” Kagami informed him, smirking. “ _You_ did that when you said she was your sister! I only know so many sets of siblings, and one just happens to be in Le Havre and Honfleur at the exact same time that I’m doing Hero stuff with Viperion and Bengalia?”

He snorted. “We were all so careful, and I guess we didn’t need to be.”

Kagami joined the laugh. It felt so nice to have people with whom she could really relax and be herself, who knew both sides of her. Before this trip that number had only included Adrien, Marinette, Chloe, Sabrina, and Max; now she could add three more to the list. But she still couldn’t lose focus on her one last mission… She sighed. “I really don’t want this trip to end,” she whispered sadly.

“You have been so much happier these last two weeks than you have been for as long as I’ve known you,” Luka noted, smiling at her gently and placing a hand on her shoulder. “With _or_ without the mask!”

“Even when Mother is nowhere to be seen, I hardly feel like I can escape her control in Paris,” she admitted. “Even when I ‘snuck away’ to listen to Kitty Section, I was always afraid that Mother might find out what I was doing and be upset and clamp down. Even when I was Ryoku, I was always afraid that Mother would recognize my voice and force me to give up Longg. It’s only been on this trip that I’ve truly felt free to be myself.”

“Just because we’ll be back in Paris tomorrow night doesn’t mean this has to end,” he pointed out quietly. “The offer still stands for you to be Kitty Section’s ‘professional marketing consultant.’ I talked to the others – even before two nights ago – and they all thought you would be a great fit. Adrien even offered to adjust the hours of your summer internship to accommodate you taking on another client for your mother’s company.”

She sighed in relief and rested her head on his arm. “I think I would enjoy that,” she told him. She giggled. “I suppose I can squeeze listening to Kitty Section into my extremely-busy schedule after taste-testing the Dupain-Chengs’ macaroons and looking at some of Marinette’s designs!”

Luka smiled. “Just remember,” he warned her, “if Kitty Section ever goes on tour, that could mean _months_ away from your mother!”

“Oh no!” she gasped in mock horror. “Whatever would I do with myself?”

“You know, even without Kitty Section,” he added, “now that everything’s out in the open you really can ‘let the wind blow you over’ to visit us whenever you need to get away.”

“Don’t think I won’t take advantage of that!” She fell silent. This felt better, but not everything was really out in the open just yet.

“For as long as I’ve known you,” Luka finally observed, watching her intently, one eye on the boat traffic around them, “whether as Kagami or as Ryoku, you have never been one to hesitate. Most of the time I appreciate that about you; every so often it gets frustrating to no end when I have to watch you die for the seventh time in a row.”

Kagami shrugged, her cheeks reddening under his intense gaze. “That’s what I have to do. You and I both know that’s how our partnership works best: I’m the weapon; you’re the hand that guides it. I would promise not to do it again, but we both know that would be a lie,” she told him. “So instead I’ll say I’ve never wanted to make you watch or live through that. But I’ve always trusted you to have my back and make it right.”

“And I always will,” he promised, nodding. “But you’re still hesitating over something.”

She frowned. “I told Marinette once that I never hesitate, but that’s not entirely true,” she confessed, staring at the planks under their feet, “not in everything. In some things I just can’t bring myself to act in my own interests, as much as I want to.”

“So don’t hesitate.”

Kagami leaned back to look at him, put her hand on his on the wheel, and felt heat in her ears. She asked, “I–I love you. Will you go out with me?”

He smiled warmly. “I love you, too,” he told her. “And I absolutely want to go out with you.”

Kagami squeezed his hand reflexively, leaned forward on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the cheek. He turned to face her, met her lips with his own, and she felt him slip his hand from under hers and wrap both his arms around her waist. She put her arms around his neck, pulled him closer, and melted into his embrace, humming contentedly.

And then the boat veered sharply to starboard and Kagami would have fallen backward were it not for Luka’s arms around her.

“Hey, you two!” Juleka shouted from the foredeck as they broke apart and Luka grabbed for the wheel to correct their course. “Mom won’t appreciate you sinking the house!”

Rose suddenly rolled off the bench and started laughing hysterically. “Be–be–because,” she gasped, doubling over with laughter, “that would make them ‘home-wreckers’!”

Juleka snorted and soon they were both rolling on the deck, laughing.

“Oh, stop it!” Kagami called, feeling her cheeks take on an even deeper flush.

Luka tried to fight back a grin. “Don’t pretend this wasn’t your plan all along!”

“Who, _us_?” Rose asked innocently, pushing herself up to her feet.

“Certainly not!” Juleka insisted. “But,” she went on, smirking, “maybe you should let _us_ worry about the boat if _you_ ’re going to be all _distracted_!”

“Fine,” Kagami replied, grabbing Luka’s hand and dragging him out of the pilothouse. She glared at Juleka viciously as she took the wheel. “Later, we’re all _training_ below-deck… and there will be no mercy! But for now,” she added, smiling warmly up at Luka as he followed her down the stairs, “I want to know what you think of my heart song this morning!”

Real life was waiting for them back in Paris. Her mother would not make any of this easy, of course. But right here and right now, all that mattered was that, perhaps for the first time in her life, Kagami was happy and comfortable and _free_.


	19. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was almost a one-shot in “The Life and Times of the Heroes of Paris.” However, in talking to a friend on here I realized that this works much better as an Epilogue, wrapping up the story a little more than the end of chapter 18 did. This isn’t the end of Kagami and Luka’s story, however. I already have a sequel in the works which will be set around Christmas. But there’s a lot of story to get through before then…

**One Week Later**

Ryoku ducked and twisted to one side under her opponent’s strike. The swing drew him off balance, and he over-corrected and stumbled forward. In the process he lost his grip on his weapon, which clattered across the roof. Taking advantage of his mistake, Ryoku brought her sword up against his neck.

“And you’re dead,” she informed him, grinning.

Viperion doubled over, put his hands on his knees, and wiped his forehead. “You’re not even breathing heavy!” he complained, glaring up at her reproachfully.

“You did a little better this time,” she assured him. She flipped a water bottle into the air with her foot, swiped it out of the air, and tossed it across to him. She smirked. “This time it took me _ten_ moves to kill you!”

“ _That_ ’s what you call improvement???”

Ryoku shrugged. “If it takes _me_ ten moves, then you can _almost_ stand up to _almost_ anyone else,” she told him. “Adrien? Probably twelve moves. But at this point you might be able to fend off Bengalia. Maybe. If you catch her on a bad day.”

“Well, thanks,” he groaned, throwing the half-empty water bottle at her head. “Maybe my _sister_ won’t beat me up…”

“Let’s go for one more round tonight,” Ryoku decided, ignoring the half-hearted glare he sent her way. She walked over to where the lyre had landed, stuck the tip of her sword through the space between two of the strings, and flicked it through the air. Viperion caught it by one arm, a moment before Ryoku landed in front of him and unleashed a vicious slash at his head. He ducked beneath the sword and dropped his lyre to his waist to block her follow-up kick. “Good anticipation!” she called, spinning around his block and bringing her sword up for a two-handed chop. Viperion blocked with his lyre and deflected the blade away, but she flicked her wrist, brought the sword up under his lyre, and pulled it out of his hands, sending it sailing through the air.

Viperion tumbled back away from her, came to his feet, and caught the lyre just in time to block Ryoku’s next stab. The sword caught between two lyre strings, and he wrenched it out of her hands. In the same motion he threw both the lyre and the sword across the roof tangled up together.

“You disarmed me. Not bad,” Ryoku commented, letting her arms fall to her sides and nodding in approval.

“Thanks,” Viperion replied, running a hand through his hair and grinning.

Without warning Ryoku dropped to the ground and swept his legs out from under him. Viperion slammed his back on the ground hard. Ryoku pounced on top of him, pinning his legs and arms with her own, and grinned. “Next lesson: even a _dis_ armed opponent is never _un_ armed.”

“Noted…” Viperion gave her a thumb up and blinked owlishly up at her.

“So how do you get out of this one, Snake Boy?” she taunted, leaning over him, their faces centimeters apart, tickling his nose with her breath.

In response, he lunged forward and slammed his mouth into hers. Ryoku’s eyes went wide open in surprise even as she leaned in and kissed him back. She caught the twinkle in his eyes and loosened her grip on his arms fractionally. Without breaking the kiss, he flipped them over so he was crouching over her, pinning her down with his legs. She relaxed, entwined her fingers with his, and allowed herself a contented moan as he trailed kisses along the collar of her suit.

“I assume you’re not planning to add that particular move to your arsenal,” she commented a few minutes later, smirking to hide her blush. They were sitting side-by-side on the edge of the roof, his hand over hers, watching a couple of late-night boats pass by on the Seine.

Viperion laughed easily. “I’m pretty sure that would freak someone out if I did that,” he agreed. “Anyone else I would have head-butted in that situation. With you? I liked this way better!” He eyed her suspiciously. “You let me win, didn’t you?”

“Who, me?” she asked innocently. “The daughter of Tomoe Tsurugi couldn’t possibly _lose_. Though she might adjust her skill level to the opponent, of course,” she added, smirking.

“Of course.”

Ryoku rested her head on Viperion’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Since their trip to Le Havre, this had become their normal routine – at least on the nights that neither of them was scheduled for patrol. Unfortunately, in that week they had only seen each other during the day twice. “Your new client meeting with Mother is tomorrow morning,” she commented sourly.

“Have you decided what you want to tell her about us?” he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.

“I think I need to tell her,” she finally admitted, her frown deepening as she burrowed into his arms. “We can keep sneaking around like this forever, but I don’t really want to do that. I want to do the normal things. I want to go on dates and put pictures of us together on social media. I don’t want our friends afraid to say anything about us for fear that the wrong person will hear. I don’t want to be afraid what Mother will say.” She sighed and buried her face in his shoulder. “She’s _going_ to find out sooner or later, and it will just be worse if it doesn’t come from me.”

Viperion squeezed her gently and kissed her forehead. “Do you want me to use Second Chance for the meeting?” he asked, a hint of humor in his voice.

She giggled. “Tempting, but I think I would rather have you standing there with me.”

“I’ll be holding your hand the whole time,” he promised.

“You realize she can sense things like that, right? There’s at least an even chance she would cut your hand off if you tried that…”

* * *

The next morning after breakfast, Kagami met Luka at the door to their mansion with a terse nod. Luka placed a hand on hers on the doorknob and squeezed gently. She met his eyes and gave him a small smile. Placing her other hand on her purse, she felt Longg’s comforting presence. Taking a deep breath, she nodded and led Luka up to her mother’s office.

“Mother,” she announced, the moment she and Luka were through the door, “I would like you to formally meet Luka Couffaine. He is the leader of our newest client, the band Kitty Section… and he’s also my new boyfriend.”

Her mother turned to face her and remained silent for a minute, her face unreadable. Kagami swallowed hard, trying to force down her fears.

“I see,” her mother finally stated, slowly. “Explain.”

“You remember the project I had for my internship?” Kagami asked. “The arrangements Adrien had made for our travel were for us to travel with Luka. His sister, Juleka, was the model for the campaign. I had initially made the pitch to him at the Agreste Gala, and while we were on the trip Luka recognized the benefits to the band of having a professional marketing consultant. He asked if we would still consider the band as a client, and I agreed.”

“And you said he is your boyfriend now as well?”

Kagami blushed. “Yes. That… happened on the trip, also.”

“I see.” Her mother frowned. “And this Kitty Section can afford our rates?”

“I offered them my standard fee.”

“So this boy is getting a steal from me in at least _one_ sense,” her mother commented sourly. “Is he taking advantage of your affections?”

“What? Of course not!” Kagami insisted. “We discussed Kitty Section becoming a client long before anything else happened between us!”

“Madame,” Luka interjected, taking a step forward, “I assure you that I really do care for and respect your daughter. I would never put her in a situation where she feels uncomfortable, either professionally or personally.” He stifled a laugh.

“What do you find so funny, young man?” her mother asked sharply.

Luka stiffened. “Just that I am well aware that Kagami could murder me at least six different ways without breaking a sweat if I ever _did_ make her feel uncomfortable,” he replied quickly.

“Is that all?” Her mother sniffed. “You need more practice, young lady!”

Kagami flinched. “Of course, Mother,” she replied dutifully, glaring at Luka. He gave her a repentant look and mouthed, “Sorry.” She quirked an eyebrow at him and nodded.

“Now, as for this new client agreement,” her mother continued, “you are aware that dating your marketing consultant is not going to grab any headlines, correct? Would you not just as soon find some young starlet to keep your name and your band in the public eye?”

Luka laughed. “I’m absolutely aware of that,” he assured her. “And I have no desire for anything like that kind of media coverage. The only media attention I or my band mates want is for our music – certainly not the usual celebrity gossip.”

“Fine ideals,” her mother observed curtly. “I appreciate them from a boy _wishing_ to court my daughter. All the same, if you are to be my client, I expect you to understand the importance of proper publicity in marketing your brand. Your enemy is not _bad_ press but _no_ press. There is nothing worse for you than obscurity!”

“Kagami has told us as much,” he agreed, nodding, “but there are some lines which we will not cross.”

“Very well.” She tapped her fingers on the desk contemplatively. “In exchange for accepting you at my daughter’s standard – _reduced_ – rate, I will expect your band to give us a reduced-rate license for your music to use on marketing campaigns for our other clients – it is our customary practice to use music from our own clients in our marketing campaigns since it gives them greater exposure.”

Luka nodded. “Kagami had informed us of that, as well.” He withdrew something from his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of her mother with a loud smack. “This flash drive has a song on it which we recorded this week and think may be suitable for Agreste Fashion House’s upcoming promo – the one Kagami has been working on with them as part of her internship. Since both the model for the promo _and_ the company owner are members of the band, and because I composed this song just across the bay on the same trip that the shoots took place, we thought it would be an appropriate song to accompany it.”

“I will pass this along to our client relations team,” her mother said, making no move to pick up the flash drive but nodding approvingly. “I am glad that my daughter has not been so distracted from her duty by thoughts of you that she has _forgotten_ her duty entirely. Under these terms, I will be willing to accept your band as a client, and for my daughter to be your consultant.” Kagami smiled in relief. “However,” her mother added immediately, “I cannot have my daughter dating a client – certainly not an aspiring musician. Thus I forbid you to see each other in any way other than professionally.”

Kagami’s heart dropped. Beside her, Luka turned to her with a concerned frown. After all of this – months of dancing around with her feelings, two weeks of confusion, and finally just over a week of happiness – her mother would forbid it? After years of being isolated, she had started to make friends, and even met a man she liked and trusted, and her mother would assert her control again? Kagami slumped. Years of conditioning had trained her to acquiesce to whatever her mother demanded, and she opened her mouth to agree.

On feeling the gentle weight in her purse, the words died in her throat.

Kagami Tsurugi was _not_ a weak little girl anymore, to be cowed by her domineering mother. Kagami was her own person. She had faced down monsters far worse than Hawk Moth without batting an eye. She was a superhero! Kagami Tsurugi was a _Dragon_!

Kagami drew herself up to her full height, looked straight into her mother’s sunglasses, and told her, “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No,” she repeated, more firmly, clenching her fists tightly at her sides, her knuckles turning white.

“‘No’???” her mother growled, sitting back in her chair in surprise.

“Did I _ask_ for your permission, Mother?”

Her mother’s scowl deepened ominously.

“I am seventeen,” Kagami went on heatedly. She could feel the storm clouds building in her eyes but forced herself to speak calmly and carefully, though her fists trembled. “I will be eighteen in the fall. I am _not_ a child for you to control, nor am I going to be property for you to commoditize. I have my own wants and desires. I have the right to make my own friends and date whom I wish. You can _not_ control my life forever. You can _try_ , but you _will not succeed!_ I love you, Mother, but I _will_ make my own choices.” He voice had grown louder through her tirade, until she almost yelled the last sentence, her nostrils flaring in anger.

The lines around her mother’s mouth grew more pronounced, her nostrils flared. “Did I raise you to be so rebellious?”

“You raised me to be your daughter,” Kagami retorted.

Her mother’s mouth flew open to respond, but nothing came out. She finally clamped her mouth shut and sat silently at her desk, an inscrutable expression on her face.

Kagami blinked a couple times and nearly collapsed backward. Where had that come from? How could she have said that to her _mother_? And yet she stood behind everything she had said – and more. She couldn’t and wouldn’t take a word of it back. Kagami was only dimly aware of Luka putting his hand on her shoulder and giving it an encouraging squeeze.

At long last, her mother leaned forward, placed her hands on the desk, and told her, “Very well.”

“What?” Kagami nearly gasped.

Her mother smiled thinly. “Wisdom learns from the mistakes of others. I have no desire to make Gabriel Agreste’s mistake by clamping down too hard, only to lose you entirely the moment you have the opportunity to leave. So I do give you my permission. Provided that this does not distract you from your other responsibilities.”

Kagami practically raced from the room, dragging Luka behind her, a giddy smile plastered on her face.

* * *

That night, as they made their way back to the _Liberty_ after another sparring session that ended with yet another spectacular loss on his part, Viperion decided that Ryoku’s song had never sounded more joyful and relaxed and free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the decisions in the second half (Kagami standing up to her mother; her mother agreeing) make sense. If not, I’d be happy to explain why I did things this way.


End file.
